<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>the kids aren't alright by MaryPSue</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27691042">the kids aren't alright</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryPSue/pseuds/MaryPSue'>MaryPSue</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stranger Things (TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>'mary is this an extended metaphor about growing up queer', Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Barbara "Barb" Holland Lives, Canon Rewrite, Everybody Has Powers, F/M, Gaslighting, Gen, Government Conspiracy, Jonathan Byers Has Powers, Pre-OT3 If You Squint, Season/Series 01, Will Byers Has Powers, okay nearly everybody has powers, so much platonic bonding, well it's not NOT that</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 06:46:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>64,835</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27691042</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryPSue/pseuds/MaryPSue</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>They don’t talk about it. </i>
</p><p><i>But Joyce Byers knows – when her youngest son goes missing, she knows he’s still out there. And the moment she sees that first light flicker, she</i> knows <i>it’s Will.</i></p><p>
  <i>Because it’s not the first time he’s made something like that happen.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p>There are hazards to living in a town that plays host to an experimental government lab. Unexplained noises at odd hours. Unexpected power outages.</p><p>Birth defects.</p><p>A handful of parents in Hawkins, Indiana have been keeping a shared secret from their children and each other for nearly twenty years. Whether it’s right or wrong, their silence at least keeps their children – mostly – under the radar. Keeps their children – mostly – safe.</p><p>And then Will Byers vanishes.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Barbara "Barb" Holland &amp; Nancy Wheeler, Eleven | Jane Hopper &amp; The Party, Jonathan Byers &amp; Joyce Byers, Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>94</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>126</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Listen, it's 2020 and I'll give everybody powers if I damn well want to.</p><p>This <i>was</i> supposed to be a oneshot, but when it crept up past thirty thousand words, I decided to take pity on any poor hypothetical reader who might brave clicking on it at 10pm, and broke it up into chapters. It is fully written and will be updated on Mondays.</p><p>This fic is not so much a rewrite of canon as it is a remix. I've played a little fast and loose with the timeline to better suit the AU's premise. Hopefully everything should be made clear in the fic.</p><p>The consent between Nancy and Steve does get a little questionable in this version of events due to powers neither of them knows one of them has, but it's not a major plot point, the sex doesn't actually happen, and the questionable nature of the consent eventually gets acknowledged.</p><p>Title's from the Fall Out Boy song of the same name. Recommended listening for this one is Foxes' 'White Coats'.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>This time, the world doesn’t turn upside down.</p><p>There are no monsters. Not yet. Not other than the human kind, who drive right down the main street of peaceful, sleepy Hawkins, Indiana, where nothing ever happens, with a screaming, terrified, stolen infant in the back of a Power &amp; Light van. In plain sight of mothers with their own children, who will never even know.</p><p>In another version of this story, that stolen infant is designated 011, and the psychic abilities that are the reason she was taken will be the downfall of those who took her.</p><p>But, in telling her story, it is important not to forget – there were another ten before her.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>“- swear to god it was like a <em>bomb</em> went off! And of course they said it was just a tire blowout, but I’ve never seen a blowout that could knock me off my feet from a block away.”</p><p>Jill, on the other end of the line, makes a sympathetic noise. “You don’t think it was one of the lab’s super top-secret weapons?” It’s a joke. Karen doesn’t feel like laughing.</p><p>“You weren’t there, Jill. I was worried about the baby.” She’s still worried. Little Nancy-or-Neil hasn’t stopped tossing and turning since whatever it was had gone off in the back of the Power &amp; Light truck downtown. The baby’s <em>never</em> this active. Though Karen supposes it’s better than heavy, lifeless stillness would have been.</p><p>“Oh, sweetie. I’m sorry.” Jill’s silent for a moment before asking, all trace of amusement missing from her voice now, “How <em>are</em> you feeling?”</p><p>“All right now, it just – it was such a shock.” Karen sighs, leaning back against the kitchen counter. “And of course Ted’s been no help at all.”</p><p>“Ugh. Tell me about it. I think if I told Frank I’d been knocked off my feet, he’d just say it wasn’t so bad unless I was bleeding.”</p><p>“Sounds like him.”</p><p>Little Nancy-or-Neil chooses that moment to deliver a sharp, vicious kick directly to Karen’s bladder. She doesn’t manage to totally swallow the yelp. “Sorry, Jill, I’m going to have to let you go. This little one’s got ideas about what I ought to be doing, and they don’t seem to include talking on the phone.”</p><p>“Oh, you’d better watch out. That kid’s going to be headstrong,” Jill teases.</p><p>“It’s happening. My mother’s curse, that I should have a kid who’s just like me. It’s all coming true.” Nancy-or-Neil is pummeling Karen’s kidney, now, sharp repeated jabs. “Sorry again, Jill. Chat soon.”</p><p>“Don’t be a stranger.”</p><p>Karen hangs up the phone, and escapes to the bathroom. That’s the worst part about being eight months pregnant – she doesn’t dare get too far from a bathroom these days.</p><p>About a month later, the baby settles the debate between Nancy and Neil once and for all. Little Nancy is perfectly healthy, if a little underweight, and she has the loudest wail Karen’s ever heard come out of an infant that small. The doctors tell her it means Nancy’s lungs are well-developed, that she’ll likely never struggle with asthma or allergies. Karen would settle for being able to sleep through the night.</p><p>But Nancy’s healthy. She grows normally. And that’s all anyone can ask for, with a baby.</p><p>And that day downtown, when whatever was in the Power &amp; Light truck had knocked Karen Wheeler – and everyone else in the street – off their feet is quickly forgotten.</p><p>For a while.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>They don’t talk about it.</p><p>But Joyce Byers knows – when her youngest son goes missing, she knows he’s still out there. And the moment she sees that first light flicker, she <em>knows</em> it’s Will.</p><p>Because it’s not the first time he’s made something like that happen.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>They don’t talk about it.</p><p>But Nancy Wheeler usually listens when Barbara Holland says what’s going to happen. She hasn’t been wrong yet.</p><p>But – Barb can’t seriously mean it when she says Nancy and <em>Steve Harrington</em> are going to be an <em>item</em>. They’ve just hung out a couple of times. It’s not like it’s serious. And Nancy isn’t that kind of girl.</p><p>But Steve has a way of getting what he wants from people. All he has to do is ask.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>They don’t talk about it.</p><p>But the Party each have their individual strengths. Their class proficiencies. Odd talents that come in handy, now and then. Dustin’s – <em>thing</em>, the one with the name that’s too long for anyone but a brainiac like Dustin to remember, the one that lets him bend at improbable angles. Lucas, the human lie detector. Will, and his permanent static charge. One time he’d zapped Troy so bad that Mike could <em>see</em> the electricity arc. Troy and James had given them all such a pummeling afterwards that Dustin had had a fat lip for a week and Will’s nose hadn’t stopped bleeding for almost twenty minutes, but it had still been <em>awesome</em>.</p><p>And then there’s Mike. Whose only real standout feature is being superhumanly…ordinary.</p><p>But the girl they found in the woods makes all of them look ordinary, in comparison. Between the shaved head, the tattoo, and the Jedi mind-powers, she’s got them all beat for weirdness, easy.</p><p>Dustin thinks she’s crazy. And Lucas <em>knows</em> she’s hiding something. Mike doesn’t agree that she’s crazy, but – he can’t exactly argue with the stuff Lucas <em>knows</em>. And the fact that El’s spoken maybe five whole words since they met her means she almost categorically hasn’t told them <em>some</em>thing.</p><p>But – she knows Will. She knows something about where Will is. Mike’s willing to let her keep a few secrets, if she can help find him.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>They don’t talk about it.</p><p>But Jonathan Byers likes to keep a healthy distance between himself and other people. It’s better that way. Quieter. He doesn’t have to hear their hypocrisy in person. Those moments where he sees who people really are, what they’re really thinking, somehow feel – more honest, more earned, when he has to work to capture them on camera instead. Or maybe it’s just easier, through a lens, from a distance, to fool himself into thinking they’ve got more depth than they really do. That they’re thinking something more meaningful than they really are.</p><p>What he sees through his camera lens that Tuesday night, though, is like nothing he’s ever seen – or heard – before.</p><p>Barbara Holland looks up, like she’s heard something, or seen something. Looks back over her shoulder. And then throws herself, coat and all, into the pool.</p><p>And – something huge and misshapen, something without a <em>face</em>, lunges out along the diving board right where she’d been sitting just a heartbeat ago and splashes into the water after her.</p><p>Jonathan’s up and running before Barbara even surfaces, before she even screams. He doesn’t know what he’ll do, what he <em>can</em> do, but – there’s blood in the water and, whatever that thing is, Jonathan wouldn’t leave his worst enemy to face it alone.</p><p>Barbara’s panicking, when he reaches the poolside, scrabbling at the rungs of the ladder, weighted down by her sodden coat. Whatever’s after her is thrashing in the water, churning it up too much to see exactly what or where it is even if the pool lights hadn’t been flickering wildly. Even the sound of it is alien, a horrible chilling screech that saws through Jonathan’s brain. He grabs Barb’s reaching hand and helps haul her up onto the patio, and they both scramble back, away from the pool’s edge.</p><p>Whatever that thing was that had gone after Barbara, it doesn’t resurface. The water slowly settles back to calm as the others come running out of the house in various stages of undress. By the time the six of them are all gathered together, close enough that their combined noise is already starting to give Jonathan a headache, the surface of the pool is still and clear, the lights glowing up through it steadily.</p><p>And there’s nothing in it but blue water.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>Jonathan should have understood about the lights. Of all people, Jonathan should have <em>understood</em> about the lights.</p><p>Joyce isn’t sure why he doesn’t. Why he won’t believe that Will could be here even if they can’t see him. Why he’s so ready to give up hope.</p><p>He’d probably just give her one of those wry smiles, if she asked. Say something snide about human nature, about who can know what people are really thinking. He really seems to think she doesn’t get his little jokes with himself. Like she wasn’t the one whose sentences he constantly finished when he was a baby.</p><p>Like she doesn’t have any idea what’s going on in his head.</p><p>Of course, maybe that’s why. Maybe – maybe it’s too quiet in this house now. Maybe, whatever Jonathan’s hearing that Joyce never can, it doesn’t include Will anymore.</p><p>Joyce’s heart leaps into her throat at the knock on the door. But it’s only Karen Wheeler, with her youngest in tow and an offering of a casserole. The last thing Joyce wants is to have someone else who won’t believe her hanging around the house, trying to be sympathetic, but – their shared history might have had some bumps along the way, but she and Karen go way back. She can’t exactly turn Karen away.</p><p>And – it’s sort of nice. Especially after that <em>thing</em> in the wall. Not to be alone in the house.</p><p>At least, it’s sort of nice up until Joyce and Karen realise they’ve both lost track of little Holly.</p><p>Joyce can’t distinguish the stab of terror that shoots through her when they find Holly in Will’s room, staring at the wall that – whatever it was had started to come through, from the burst of painful hope. “Did you see something?” she demands, and that hope swells as Holly nods.</p><p>Karen, on the other hand, looks at Holly like Holly’s just confessed to cold-blooded murder. And then she sweeps Holly up in both arms and carries her out into the hall, making her way to the front door before Joyce can even tell her that they need to get out. “I’m really sorry, Joyce. I hope they find him. I really have to go, I forgot – I’m late for, I have to – pick Nancy up. From – the game. At school.”</p><p>Karen’s always been a rotten liar. Especially under pressure. Joyce follows her down the hallway, not sure what she’s seeing. What’s going on.</p><p>“Karen,” she says, as Karen is opening the door, and Karen turns to look at her, her stream of babbled excuses cut short. “What – did <em>you</em> see something? Do you <em>know</em> something?”</p><p>“No,” Karen says, almost before Joyce is finished speaking. “No, I don’t know anything, and neither does Holly, and she didn’t <em>see</em> anything, right, sweetheart?”</p><p>“Ow!” Holly says, and squirms, as Karen’s grip tightens. “Mommy -”</p><p>“You didn’t see <em>anything. Right</em>, sweetheart?”</p><p>Joyce looks from the struggling Holly to Karen. Karen, she realises, looks stone-cold terrified.</p><p>“Karen,” Joyce repeats, and Karen turns wide, frightened eyes on her. “<em>Please</em>. Will is <em>missing</em>. I know it sounds – crazy, but I saw -” She bites the sentence off. “If you can help me, if Holly can -”</p><p>“There’s a reason we don’t talk about it, Joyce,” Karen says, shortly. Her eyes soften as she hitches Holly a little farther up her hip, but she still reaches for the doorknob again. “I really am sorry. About Will. About everything.”</p><p>And then she’s gone.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>Nancy believes Barb, about what chased her into the water. Barb’s never told her a lie. And her terror is real.</p><p>And also – outside the window, under the music, just before Barb had started screaming – Nancy’s sure she’d heard…<em>something</em>.</p><p>But Nancy and Jonathan are the only ones who believe it.</p><p>And after Steve says that Barb just isn’t used to being drunk, that some animal in the woods – or maybe even creepy, stalking Jonathan Byers in the woods – must have spooked her into seeing things, that it’s <em>nothing</em> – Carol and Tommy H don’t even seem to hear Nancy’s protests. Like the words just go right through them. Like the world is <em>this</em> way, and it’s only ever been <em>this</em> way, and there isn’t even another way to consider. They’re already convinced. It was <em>nothing</em>. Also, what was creepy loner Byers doing spying on their party, anyway?</p><p>Nancy’s more than glad to leave with Barb, after that. She wonders a little, as she’s giving back his sweater, just what she’d thought she’d seen in Steve. This isn’t, now that she thinks about it, the first time he’s run right over her resistance with his smile and his charming eyes and his stupid – <em>hair</em>.</p><p>Well, not any more.</p><p>She has to agree with Tommy H and Carol on one thing, though. What <em>was</em> Jonathan Byers doing spying on their party?</p><p>Nancy and Barb seek Jonathan out after school the next day, hoping to get some answers. Nicole points them to the photo lab, where they find him in the darkroom. The photos he’s developing are – they’re all of Steve Harrington’s pool. Steve Harrington’s house. Steve Harrington’s bedroom window, with –</p><p>Before Nancy really has time to process the surge of visceral disgust and – <em>violation</em> that rips through her at the sight, Barb’s tugging her forward to point down at a square of photo paper sitting in the bottom of a developing tub. “Nancy! I <em>told</em> you! Look!”</p><p>Nancy looks.</p><p>The photo is mostly shadow, highlights gleaming in the red light of the darkroom. The pool is a huge spill of light across the bottom of the page, its glow picking out the planes of Barbara’s face where she sits on the diving board, looking down into the water.</p><p>And picking out the body of the enormous, inhuman <em>thing</em> behind her.</p><p>“Thought I’d got it on camera,” Jonathan says, sounding proud, as he pulls the photo from its bath and pins it to the string to drip dry. “There you go, Nancy. Proof.”</p><p>“<em>I</em> believed you,” Nancy protests. She glances back at the photos, and says, “I believed <em>Barb</em>.”</p><p>“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Barb says, turning her attention to the hanging photos. The face she makes is somewhere between horrified and confused, turning to anger as she turns to Jonathan, but her voice stays conversational and bright. “You are so lucky that you kind of saved my life, because if you hadn’t, I’d be killing you right now.”</p><p>Jonathan suddenly looks hunted. Nancy crosses her arms over her chest and stares him down. “Yeah. What <em>are</em> these?”</p><p>“A mistake,” Jonathan says, to the floor. He shakes his head, his overlong bangs flopping in front of his face. “It was stupid. I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have done it. I just -” His eyes, when he turns them up onto Nancy’s face, are defiant. “Sometimes – it’s just nice to feel like I’m close to somebody. Part of something. Even if I’m only fooling myself.”</p><p>“You could <em>actually</em> be close to somebody,” Barb says, sharply. “If you ever actually talked to anyone.”</p><p>Jonathan’s smile is wry, like whatever he’s saying means something he knows neither Nancy or Barb will grasp. “I don’t need to talk to people. By the time I get close enough, I’ve already heard everything I need to hear.”</p><p>“Cynic,” Barb mutters.</p><p>Jonathan ignores that. “How’d you know that thing was coming?” he asks her, instead, looking up at the photo of Barb by the pool. “You got out of its way just in time.”</p><p>This time, it’s Barb who looks hunted. Nancy opens her mouth, ready to defend her, but Jonathan’s already talking, soft but sure.</p><p>“You saw it coming. How? You had your back to it.”</p><p>Barb shrugs, and pushes her glasses up on her nose, squaring her shoulders and straightening up with a look that almost passes for unconcerned. “Just lucky, I guess.”</p><p>Jonathan’s look doesn’t get any less piercing, and his eyes don’t leave her face. “But you’ve been <em>just lucky</em> a lot, right?”</p><p>Nancy looks back and forth between them. She’s got the feeling that there’s a silent conversation – maybe a silent argument – going on that she’s not party to. And she doesn’t think she likes it.</p><p>Then Barb lets out a long sigh, her shoulders drooping. “Fine. You’re gonna find out anyway,” she says. “Sometimes…sometimes, it’s like I know about things before they happen. Go ahead. Call me crazy.”</p><p>“I don’t think you’re crazy,” Jonathan says, and he sounds like he means it. Nancy’s not sure why his eyes skip over to her. “Nancy already knows.” It’s not a question.</p><p>“Knows – you’ve <em>never</em> told me you think you’re. What. Psychic?” But even as she says it, Nancy understands. Barb didn’t <em>have</em> to tell her. They don’t talk about it. But –</p><p>But Nancy usually listens when Barb says what’s going to happen. Because Barb hasn’t been wrong yet.</p><p>“I don’t…think you’re crazy, either,” Nancy says, slowly.</p><p>The three of them stand in the dim red light in silence, for a long moment, after that.</p><p>“We need to find out what that thing is,” Barb says, at last, at the same time as Nancy starts to say, “Wait, Jonathan, if your little brother -”</p><p>They both break off, looking at each other.</p><p>Jonathan doesn’t seem to be paying attention to either of them. He’s turned to look at that photo again, at the <em>thing</em> in it. Nancy’s not sure if the way his eyes shine can be put down to just the red light.</p><p>“Yeah,” he says, and there’s something about his voice that makes him sound like – less like angry, creepy loner Jonathan Byers and more like a little kid. Just a scared, sad little kid. “Yeah. That’s what I’m afraid of.”</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>“Is she lying? <em>Lucas!</em> Is she <em>lying</em>!”</p><p>Lucas shakes his head. “If she is, she’s a better liar than anybody I’ve ever met.”</p><p>“Maybe she got confused?” Dustin offers, painfully hopeful, before turning to El. “Will lives here. We want to find where he is <em>now</em>.”</p><p>El nods, slowly, her eyes big and wide. And doesn’t move.</p><p>“What? What does that mean?” Mike asks. “You were confused?”</p><p>El shakes her head. Her voice is quiet and whispery. “He’s here.”</p><p>Mike glances over at Lucas, and sees Dustin do the same. Lucas gives El a long look, frowning in confusion as he shakes his head.</p><p>“The truth,” he says, like he can’t believe it either.</p><p>“This doesn’t make any sense. If Will was at his house, his mom would’ve found him by now.” Mike takes a deep breath, and a step forward to put a hand on El’s shoulder, searching her face for any kind of clue. “This can’t be it. There has to be something else. There has to be more –”</p><p>And that’s when they hear the sirens.</p><p>The police cars lead them to the quarry. To where they’re pulling a stretcher out of the water. A kid-sized stretcher. With a kid-sized body on it.</p><p>A kid-sized body wearing a very familiar vest.</p><p>Mike thinks he’s going to hurl.</p><p>He looks at El, and thinks he’s going to burst, going to shatter. He’d trusted her. He’d <em>trusted</em> her, but somehow she’d fooled Lucas, she’d fooled them all, she’d, she’d let him hope –</p><p>Lucas smacks him in the arm.</p><p>“Guys,” he says, under his breath, not taking his eyes from the stretcher coming up out of the water, “it’s not him.”</p><p>“What?” Even Dustin sounds distraught, and it takes a lot to upset Dustin. “Are you for real? <em>Look</em> at him!”</p><p>“I <em>am</em> looking at him, and I’m telling you, it’s not him! That’s not Will!”</p><p>“Yeah, well, you’re not doing so hot tonight, are you?” Mike snaps, and Lucas turns back to shoot him an annoyed glare.</p><p>“Mike. Have I ever lied to you?”</p><p>“Friends don’t lie,” El says, softly, behind him.</p><p>“It’s not him,” Lucas says, and he sounds <em>sure</em>. “It’s not real, and it’s <em>not</em> him.”</p><p>“And if it’s not him -” Dustin’s eyes widen as he turns to El. “She could be right.”</p><p>Mike turns one last, long look back out onto that stretcher. It <em>looks</em> like Will. It could be Will.</p><p>But he trusts his friends. And he wants to hope.</p><p>“Okay,” he says, picking his bike back up. “Then we’ve gotta get back to Will’s house. <em>Now.</em>”</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>Joyce hears the sirens, sees the lights, like they’re a thousand miles away and underwater. Her ears are full of the pounding of her own heart, her ragged breathing, the crunch of gravel under her sneakers, as she runs as far and as fast as she can away from the house.</p><p>Away from the <em>thing</em> inside it.</p><p>She can only hope that Will got away before it came. God – Will – if he’s been trapped, somehow, all this time, with that <em>thing</em>, that <em>monster</em> –</p><p>Joyce doesn’t see the bikes until she’s almost tripping over them. There’s a chorus of shouts and a squeal of brakes and gravel as they all pile to a halt.</p><p>Will’s friends look back at her with wide eyes. Mike Wheeler, Lucas Sinclair, Dustin Henderson, and – for a split second, Joyce’s mind fills in the fourth boy with Will’s familiar face, before she remembers and <em>really</em> looks. The fourth kid isn’t Will, of course. It’s not even a boy. Joyce doesn’t recognise the scared-looking girl with the shaved head at all.</p><p>“Mrs. B?” Dustin asks, when several long seconds pass and no one says anything. “Are you all right?”</p><p>“Did Will come home?” Lucas asks, voice thick with both anxiety and hope.</p><p>“What?” Their eyes are all so wide, so earnest, so hopeful. Joyce takes a few long, deep breaths, trying to bring herself back under control. “No – no, boys, I’m sorry.” She looks at their faces again, and hope digs its claws into her chest. “Did you think he had? Did he – you haven’t <em>seen</em> him? Has he talked to you?”</p><p>Three heads shake a mute <em>no</em>.</p><p>Joyce lets out a breath, and with it lets go of that barbed hope. “What – what are you all doing out here at this hour, anyway?” She looks at the girl, again, who ducks her head back behind Mike’s. “Who’s your new friend?”</p><p>“She’s – uh – Eleanor,” Mike stammers. “My cousin.”</p><p>“She’s visiting,” Lucas supplies.</p><p>“From Sweden!” Dustin contributes brightly.</p><p>Karen Wheeler’s brother isn’t married. Joyce doesn’t know Ted as well, but she doesn’t think either of his sisters have children, and she <em>knows</em> that one of them lives in Michigan and the other works at the hospital in town. And all three of the boys are looking at her like they really, really want her to believe them. Joyce can’t fathom why they’re lying to her.</p><p>But – the girl is still hiding behind Mike. And for some reason, Joyce is reminded of what Karen had said, before she’d left.</p><p>
  <em>There’s a reason we don’t talk about it.</em>
</p><p>“All right,” she says. “It’s – nice to meet you, Eleanor. I’m Will’s mom. You can call me Joyce, if – if you want.”</p><p>“That’s always gonna be too weird, Mrs. Byers,” Lucas apologises.</p><p>The girl peeks out from behind Mike’s head. She gives Joyce a long look, before flashing a flicker of smile that doesn’t move any part of her face except her mouth.</p><p>“Do – um, do your parents know you’re here?” Joyce asks.</p><p>The looks the boys exchange between themselves tell her loud and clear that they don’t. “Eleanor”, though, doesn’t take her eyes off Joyce’s face.</p><p>And that’s when Joyce realises the sirens are coming closer again.</p><p>“<em>Shit!</em>” Dustin swears, and then turns wide eyes in Joyce’s direction. “Sorry, Mrs. B.”</p><p>“We gotta go,” Lucas says, as headlights start to sweep up the road. He and Dustin turn their bikes and start to pedal hard for the trees.</p><p>Mike starts to turn his bike, too, but pauses, looking back at Joyce. He meets her eyes, and she feels – frozen.</p><p>“Don’t listen to them,” Mike says, like the words are terribly important, like if he had to say this with his dying breath he’d still force the words out. “They’re going to tell you Will’s dead. It’s a <em>lie</em>.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Mike,” the girl Mike had called Eleanor says, soft but urgent, fingers digging into his shoulder. Mike glances back behind him before kicking the pedals of his bike into motion, heading after his friends.</p><p>“Michael Wheeler!” Joyce shouts after him, running two steps after the bike and then sliding to a stop. It’s better that they’re leaving, anyway, with that – <em>monster</em> in the house, but - “What do you mean, <em>they’re going to tell me Will’s dead</em>?”</p><p>Mike twists back around, as he disappears into the cover of the trees, calling back to Joyce as the first squad car pulls into the drive, bathing her in its headlights. “Don’t listen to them!”</p><p>The last Joyce sees of them is the girl’s dark eyes, still fixed on her face.</p><p>Then Mike’s bicycle bumps behind a tree, and they’re gone.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>Nancy gets home after a long and fruitless evening at the library with Jonathan and Barb, not having found anything that even vaguely resembles the thing in the photo.</p><p>And finds Steve Harrington knocking at her window.</p><p>She thinks about just leaving him out there, for a moment. But in the end, Nancy pushes the sash up and lets Steve come stumbling in. “What do you think you’re doing here?”</p><p>Steve dusts himself off, brushing a stray lock back out of his face as he straightens up. “You blew me off. For the game.”</p><p>Nancy’d completely forgotten about the game. No wonder her mother hadn’t fussed too much when she’d got home late. “Oh. Y-yeah. Sorry. I – forgot. I had this…big biology project. I was at the library with Barb all afternoon.”</p><p>“And you couldn’t stick around after school long enough to mention that to me?” Steve looks – confused. And a little hurt.</p><p>“You would’ve tried to talk me into staying for the game,” Nancy says, with an apologetic smile. It’s not a lie.</p><p>Steve shoots her one of his most disarming smiles. “And I would’ve succeeded. Come on, it was <em>way</em> better than any old biology project. At least, it would’ve been if you were there.”</p><p>Nancy rubs her arm with one hand. She must’ve let in a little of the chilly night air along with Steve. “I’m – I’m really sorry. I just – lost track of what day it was and -”</p><p>Steve lets out a long breath before interrupting her increasingly lame attempts at an excuse. “Nance. It’s all right. I know what this is really about.”</p><p>“Oh,” Nancy says, feeling like she’s just swallowed a bowling ball. She looks Steve in the eye, and suddenly, the afternoon’s activities feel extraordinarily foolish. Believing in psychic abilities feels extraordinarily foolish. <em>Monster hunting</em> feels extraordinarily foolish. “You – you do.”</p><p>“Yeah.” Steve has a way of looking at her like she’s the only thing in the room. It was…nice, last night. Electric. Now, Nancy just kind of wants out from under it. “What happened last night, what I said – it really got to you, huh?”</p><p>Nancy blinks at him.</p><p>“That’s what I’m doing here.” Steve finally takes his eyes off of Nancy’s face, turning his head to look around her room as he gives an exaggerated shrug. “Think I’m trying to apologise.”</p><p>Well, at least it’s not about her spending time with another guy. Nancy crosses her arms over her chest and stares down Steve’s rueful, sheepish smile. “I don’t think it’s me you need to be apologising to.”</p><p>“No. No, you’re right, but -” The smile fades off Steve’s face. “I don’t know where Barbara lives.” There’s something earnest, almost puppy-dog-ish in his dark eyes as he adds, “And…I didn’t want to see her like I wanted to see you.”</p><p>Nancy bites down on her bottom lip. She lets Steve squirm for a moment before taking pity on him. “All right. Let’s hear this apology.”</p><p>“I – look, I didn’t mean to upset you or your friend. And I really didn’t mean to insult her, or – make her look stupid in front of Tommy and Carol, or anything. We shouldn’t have just left her out there alone.” Steve stuffs his hands in his pockets, shuffles his feet against Nancy’s carpet, the picture of contrition.</p><p>He ducks his chin into his collar, looking at Nancy through his lashes, and she has to steel herself all over again. “You <em>were</em> being kind of unreasonable, though. I’m sure Barbara did see <em>something</em> that scared her. But – come on, Nance, faceless monsters? Maybe – maybe there was a coyote or something in the woods back there. Maybe even a bear. It was dark. She was already upset.”</p><p>It sounds…so reasonable. So logical. Nancy almost wants to give in and agree, just admit that he was right and the whole thing is crazy. Really, what did she let convince her otherwise? The word of Jonathan Byers and a blurry photograph?</p><p>
  <em>A blurry photograph.</em>
</p><p>“It was real!” Nancy blurts, and the spell is broken. Steve takes a half-step back, apparently as taken aback as she is by her volume, and Nancy dials it down before she goes on. It would <em>not</em> improve her night for her mom to come up here and find Nancy with a <em>boy</em> in her bedroom. “It was real. We have proof.”</p><p>Steve gives her a long, hard look. “Proof.” And then he twigs to the part that Nancy was hoping he wouldn’t notice. “ ‘We’?”</p><p>“Me. And Barb.” Nancy takes a deep breath, and, again, blurts it out. “And Jonathan. He caught it on camera.”</p><p>“He was taking <em>photos</em> of us?” Steve shakes his head, his face shading into anger mixed with disbelief. “I should knock his block off. I should bust that stupid camera -”</p><p>“<em>Don’t.</em>” Nancy’s taken two steps forward before she knows she means to, curling both hands in the lapels of Steve’s jacket. “Don’t, okay? It was stupid, but he already apologised for it.”</p><p>“He apologised to <em>you</em>,” Steve corrects her. And then, a thoughtful frown crossing his face, “<em>When</em> did he apologise to you?”</p><p>Nancy shuts her eyes, grimacing. This isn’t going to help. “Today. When he showed us the picture.”</p><p>“Nancy,” Steve says, and it’s as serious as she’s ever heard him, ever seen him. He searches her face before asking, like he doesn’t really want to know the answer, “Did you seriously blow me off to look at Jonathan Byers’ creepy photos?”</p><p>Nancy looks over at her desk to avoid meeting Steve’s eyes.</p><p>Steve pulls away from her, sitting heavily on the chest under her window. “Shit,” he says, with feeling, staring blankly into the middle distance in the direction of Nancy’s dresser. “I’m gonna kill him.” It’s matter-of-fact, plain and simple, with no heat behind it.</p><p>“You’re not going to do anything. It wasn’t <em>like</em> that. And I’m sure he’d apologise to you if you gave him the chance.”</p><p>Steve doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move, for a long moment.</p><p>“Fine,” he says at last, pushing himself to his feet. “Well, he’s gonna get the chance, then. Because I want to see this <em>proof</em> that’s got my girlfriend running around hunting monsters with <em>Jonathan Byers</em> for myself.”</p><p>“Only if you <em>promise</em> you’re not going to start anything.”</p><p>“That’s a big promise, Nance.”</p><p>“<em>Steve</em>.” Nancy looks up under her lashes at him. “Please.”</p><p>Steve looks off to his right, runs a hand through his hair, and heaves an enormous sigh before turning back to look at Nancy. “Fine. <em>Fine</em>. But only because you asked.”</p><p>Nancy nods, and says a silent apology in her head to both Jonathan and Barb for what she’s about to do. “We’re meeting up again tomorrow. After school, at the library.”</p><p>There’s no warmth in the smile Steve flashes in her direction. “Then it’s a date.”</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>“Mike.”</p><p>Mike looks up from the walkie he’s turning over and over in his hands to the blanket fort. El’s looking back at him with huge, solemn eyes. Her expressions are never exactly easy to read, but – he thinks he sees fear in this one. “Will she tell?”</p><p>“Who, Will’s mom?” El nods, and Mike shakes his head. “No way. She worries a lot, but – she’s cool. And I think she bought that story about you being my cousin.”</p><p>El does not look reassured. All she says, though, is, “Cousin?”</p><p>“Like – like, if your mom or dad has any sisters or brothers. Their kids are your cousins. I don’t really have any. Lucas has a whole bunch out west somewhere, and Dustin thinks he has a couple but they don’t talk to his dad’s side of the family anymore so he’s not really sure.” El seems more confused, not less, so Mike stops talking.</p><p>“Sisters?” El asks, shifting closer towards him out of the fort. Mike nods.</p><p>“Yeah. Like – other kids with the same mom and dad as you. You really don’t know what sisters and brothers are?”</p><p>For a moment, El looks like she’s looking at something a million miles away.</p><p>“I had…sisters,” she says, at last.</p><p>“Really?” Mike sits forward on the couch, setting his Supercom down on the coffee table so he can give her his full attention. “What happened to them? Where are they now? Still in the bad place?”</p><p>El looks at him with big, heartbroken eyes. She doesn’t take them off his face as she slowly, slowly shakes her head.</p><p>The single word she says is like an ice cube pressed against his spine. “Gone.”</p><p>Mike doesn’t know what to do. He gets up from the couch and goes to sit next to El, inside the blanket fort. It’s warm and a little stuffy inside, with the nightlight on, a soft yellow glow. It feels – like nothing bad should be able to get them in here. It’s not fair that that’s not true.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he says, and El gives him the smallest frown of confusion. “Sorry? You know, like -”</p><p>“I know ‘sorry’,” El says, saving Mike from having to try to figure out how to explain the concept of being sorry. “Why?”</p><p>“Because – because it’s sad, that they’re gone. And because it’s making you sad. So it’s too bad that it happened and I wish it hadn’t. So…” He shrugs. “Sorry.”</p><p>El’s still got that slight frown on her face, but she doesn’t exactly look confused. Or mad. Just like she’s trying hard to figure something out.</p><p>“What were they like?” Mike asks, for something to say. “Your sisters. Were they – like you?” He taps his temple with two fingers.</p><p>El gives him a slow, cautious nod. She presses two fingers against her own chest, and then reaches out to gently tap them against Mike’s. Her stare seems to be looking right through his eyes to the back of his skull, like she’s trying to talk to him without words. “And you.”</p><p>Mike puts a hand to his chest, where El had touched. He can still feel the faint pressure of her fingers, like she’d burned him through his t-shirt with her touch. “What, like – boys? Boy sisters are called <em>brothers</em>.”</p><p>“Brothers,” El repeats, her eyes searching back and forth across Mike’s face.</p><p>“Yeah. You had brothers too?”</p><p>El shakes her head no.</p><p>Mike doesn’t get it. But before he can ask any more questions, his mother’s voice calls down the stairs. “Michael? Are you still down there? It’s a school night.”</p><p>“Coming!” Mike yells up the stairs, then lowers his voice as he turns back to El. “I’ve gotta go up to bed. But I’ll see you again in the morning. Okay?”</p><p>El bites at her bottom lip, just a little. But she nods once. “Okay.”</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>Jonathan starts to get a bad feeling when he passes two squad cars going back towards town on his way home.</p><p>When he pulls into the drive, his mother’s sitting out on the porch, with a pack of Camels on the table beside her and a small collection of butts stubbed out against its glass top. The cigarette she’s holding in one hand shakes as she brings it to her mouth.</p><p>“Mom,” Jonathan says, concern growing as he hurries up to join her on the porch. His mom doesn’t look up at him, just breathes out a long stream of smoke. The jangle and static of her nerves is a frantic buzz, drowning out any kind of coherent thought she might be having. She’s got to be feeling paralysed. It’s been a long time since Jonathan’s seen her this bad. “What happened? What’s going on?”</p><p>His mom finally looks up, meeting his eyes, and Jonathan takes a half-step back. The last time he saw that kind of hurt in another living being’s eyes, it was just before his dad had made him kill it.</p><p>“Mom,” he repeats, and his mom surges up out of the patio chair, throwing her arms up around his neck and clinging desperately, furiously, like he’s the only thing keeping her from falling straight off the Earth.</p><p>Jonathan can tell she’s struggling for words, searching for the kindest way to say it. But it’s too late. It’s the only thing left in her head.</p><p>“<em>Who</em> found Will’s body?” he says, before he can stop himself, and his mom gives one shuddering, shoulder-heaving sob into his shirt.</p><p>She’s too distraught to mention, or really even notice, Jonathan’s slip. She’s also too distraught to offer much resistance when he scoops up her pack of Camels and lighter in one hand, and steers her towards the front door with the other. “Come on. It’s freezing out here.”</p><p>Jonathan tries to muster up an emotion of his own as he puts on a kettle and goes rummaging for teabags. The last thing his mom needs right now is coffee.</p><p>He finds the teabags in the back of a cupboard. But all he can find inside himself is a heavy, hollow dullness. This is what he’s been bracing himself for since the moment they realised Will hadn’t spent the night at the Wheelers’. Somehow, Jonathan thinks, he’d already known. Somehow he’s known all along.</p><p>The warmth of the house and the hot drink in her hands seems to calm his mom down some, give her space to start sorting through her thoughts. She’s still struggling to wrap words around it, to find her voice to say it and make it all real, and even though they don’t talk about it, Jonathan has to take pity on her. “Mom, don’t. You know you don’t have to tell me.”</p><p>His mom looks up at him with eyes that are suddenly and remarkably clear. When she asks, “Why don’t you ever talk about it?”, Jonathan isn’t surprised. But he can’t say he isn’t blindsided.</p><p>“<em>You</em> told me not to,” he says, taking a sip of his own tea so his mother can’t see his face.</p><p>“Not – not to <em>strangers</em>, baby, not -” His mom struggles with words for a moment before giving up. “You could have talked to me. You <em>can</em> talk to me. You know that, Jonathan, right?”</p><p>Jonathan shrugs.</p><p>His mom’s stare is uncomfortably knowing. “You don’t have to pretend to be <em>normal</em> for me, Jonathan.” She gives a soft huff, blowing on the surface of her tea even though it must have gone lukewarm a while ago. “Whatever that is.”</p><p>She really thinks she means it. Jonathan can’t say he’s surprised. But she has no idea what she’s asking for.</p><p>“I was…trying to let you think I was growing out of it,” he says. It’s been the opposite, really. His radius just seems to get wider every year. And people’s noise harder to tune out.</p><p>“Sweetheart,” his mom says, reaching across the table to grasp his hand in what she thinks is a reassuring grip, “why would you do that?”</p><p>Jonathan shrugs one shoulder. But he doesn’t pull his hand away just yet. “So you wouldn’t have to worry so much about me. About <em>it</em>.” He looks down at her hand, closed so tightly over his that it’s starting to hurt. He can’t look her in the eyes and say this. “And – Dad never really seemed to be a fan.”</p><p>If his dad knew what his mom thought of him in that moment, Jonathan thinks, he’d steer clear of their family for fear of his life.</p><p>“You don’t have to worry about him,” Jonathan’s mom says, firmly, giving his hand one last squeeze before releasing it. From the resolve that’s settled in her, Jonathan doesn’t doubt she means it. At least, until the next time Lonnie Byers comes around with flowers and sad eyes and all the right words of contrition, <em>wanting to spend some quality time with his sons</em>.</p><p>Son, now.</p><p>Jonathan wrenches his mind back onto the topic at hand. “Yeah, but – you know. Other fish in the sea.”</p><p>He doesn’t need to be able to read his mother’s mind to see the flicker of guilt that flashes through her. But what did she think? That Jonathan just…wouldn’t notice that she never dated, never brought anyone home? That her <em>telepathic son</em> wouldn’t be able to tell that she let herself be lonely, because she was worried about what might happen if she let a stranger close enough to find out what her family was <em>really</em> like?</p><p>“I – I don’t care about that,” his mom says, a weak lie. “Okay? I just – I only ever wanted to protect you. Keep you safe.”</p><p>“I know,” Jonathan mutters into his tea. That’s the worst part. He <em>does</em> know.</p><p>The look his mom fixes him with is uncomfortable, and he gets up and paces the length of the room, not wanting to hear whatever’s going through her head. Unfortunately, it sounds like she’s going to tell him anyway.</p><p>“You are just – you are so, so special, Jonathan. Both you and your brother are. You do know that, don’t you?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Jonathan mutters. “Can’t exactly forget it.”</p><p>His mom bites down on her lips, giving him a kicked-puppy look, and then turns and stares down into her tea.</p><p>“Mike Wheeler warned me,” she says, after a moment of silence. “Before the cops got here. Said that they were going to tell me Will was dead. And that it was a lie.”</p><p>It’s amazing. Jonathan still can’t summon up a single feeling about finding out that his little brother, the one he was supposed to protect, is dead. But <em>this</em>? This sparks a burning black rage in the pit of his chest. “<em>Mom.</em> You can’t do this.”</p><p>His mother gives him a surprisingly steely look. “I’m not giving up on him, Jonathan. <em>That’s</em> the only thing I can’t do.”</p><p>“Giving up -” The sight of that – faceless monster, moving too fast to be natural, too fast to avoid unless you already knew it was coming, flashes across Jonathan’s memory, and the fury burns hotter. He’s not totally sure if it’s aimed at his mother or at himself. “Will is <em>dead</em>, Mom! They found his <em>body</em>! We’re way past <em>giving up</em>!”</p><p>But he doesn’t need to hear his mom to know it’s a lost cause. She just shakes her head, setting her mug down on the table with a firm <em>thump</em>. “The body that they found at the same time as I was talking to Will?”</p><p>“What, through the <em>Christmas lights</em>? Can you hear yourself?”</p><p>Jonathan’s mom looks, for a second, like she’s about to burst into tears. But instead, she pushes herself to her feet. “I don’t care. I don’t care if you think I’m crazy. I don’t care if – if <em>everybody</em> thinks I’m crazy! Just because <em>you</em> can’t hear him anymore, doesn’t mean he’s not <em>there</em>. And if there is even the tiniest shred of a chance, even the – the smallest sliver of doubt, I <em>cannot</em> just give up. I will do – <em>whatever</em> it takes, and I will <em>find</em> Will, and I will <em>bring him home!</em>”</p><p>She bangs a fist down on the table like punctuation, and it wobbles on its uncertain legs. Tea slops up and out of her mug, pooling on the placemat around it.</p><p>Jonathan and his mom both look at it for a long moment, before Jonathan sighs and makes for the sink to grab the dishcloth.</p><p>“Jonathan,” his mom says, like a plea. <em>Understand, please. Agree, please. Watch out for your brother, please. Don’t make a fuss, please. I’m only trying to take care of you.</em> It’s been the background narration of his life, and abruptly, Jonathan’s sick of it.</p><p>“It’s late,” he says, brushing past his mom to scrub tea off the tabletop. “Everybody’s had a hard day, and tomorrow’s gonna be worse. Let’s just – sleep on this. Okay?”</p><p>For some reason, his mom looks back over her shoulder at that, with a stab of fear as she turns towards the living room.</p><p>“What?” Jonathan asks, and his mom spins back to face him with a wobbly fake smile.</p><p>“You – you go ahead, sweetheart. I’m just going to sit up a little longer. Don’t think I can sleep yet.”</p><p>“<em>Mom</em>,” Jonathan says, sternly, and doesn’t feel guilty about the way her face falls. He <em>doesn’t</em>. She was the one who said he didn’t have to pretend to be normal for her. “Why are you going to get the <em>axe</em>? What are you scared of?”</p><p>His mother gives him a long look. Jonathan wishes he didn’t have to know the way what she sees in him is shifting. There’s a reason why Will’s the only one he ever really lets himself be <em>himself</em> around. Will at least sort of understands – <em>understood</em>. Everybody else – well. Jonathan can’t say he’d be thrilled to find out somebody else had been going snooping in <em>his</em> head.</p><p>Although – he finds he doesn’t really regret blowing up the careful illusion he’s been maintaining for his mother. Especially not when her assessment of him settles out into something that feels almost like respect.</p><p>“Will warned me,” she says, with a fluttery gesture in the direction of the living room. There’s something a little too sarcastic in the way she says, “Through the <em>Christmas lights</em>, yeah. It, it came out of the wall -”</p><p>Jonathan doesn’t want to start the argument about Will all over again. But he doesn’t have to bite his tongue for long, because the memory that floats to the surface of his mother’s thoughts is sharp and vivid and – and Jonathan has to wonder if she isn’t <em>trying</em> to show it to him.</p><p>He’ll have to think about how that’s making him feel later, though. Because, right now –</p><p>“That – you really saw that?” Jonathan demands. His mom nods. “<em>Here</em>?”</p><p>“Twice. Before – in Will’s room, before I had the Christmas lights. I, I think it’s after him, Jonathan, it’s <em>real -</em>”</p><p>“Mom,” Jonathan says, cutting the litany short. “I know.”</p><p>His mom’s face doesn’t change. But the mushroom-bloom of painful hope that fills her makes Jonathan feel suddenly guilty, for reasons he can’t explain even to himself.</p><p>Still, he takes a breath, and says the words he knows she’s waiting, hoping, for him to say. “I’ve seen it too.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So I typed up what I'd written in longhand for the final chapter and uh...it was several more words than I'd estimated. So I've bumped the chapter count on this fic up to nine, although really, in terms of content, it's going to be more like eight chapters and an epilogue.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nancy spends all morning the next day alternately looking for and dreading having to talk to Jonathan Byers. But she doesn’t see him in the hallways, or the cafeteria, or lurking in the back of any of their shared classes. It’s like he’s vanished off the face of the earth.</p><p>She asks Barb, in third period, if she’s seen him. Barb twists around in her seat to raise an eyebrow at Nancy. “He’s not coming today,” she says, like it should be obvious, and a little shiver runs down Nancy’s spine. Sure, she’s heard Barb make such confident proclamations before, and it’s always been only a little weird when they came true, but – now that she’s living in a world where apparently monsters exist, where apparently ESP exists, where <em>apparently</em> her best friend <em>has it</em> –</p><p>Barb, oblivious to Nancy’s inner turmoil, gives a little shake of her head and an open-handed half-shrug. “Haven’t you heard? Mark can’t shut up about it. You know his dad’s a fireman, right?”</p><p>Nancy nods, feeling a little silly for having mistaken gossip for ESP.</p><p>Barb leans closer, lowering her voice. “They pulled Will Byers’ body out of the quarry last night.”</p><p>“Barbara Holland. Nancy Wheeler. Is my class interrupting your conversation?”</p><p>“Sorry, Mr. Feldman,” Barb says brightly, turning back around in her desk to face the blackboard. Nancy mumbles a half-hearted agreement, and turns her gaze back into her open book.</p><p>The rest of the class is a blur. Nancy can’t focus on anything on the page in front of her. All she can think about is the shape of that thing in Jonathan’s photo, impossibly tall and huge and inhuman. All she can think about is her brother’s shrimpiest friend facing it down. All she can think about is how she’d feel if it was Mike, annoying little turd that he is, that they’d dragged lifeless out of the water.</p><p>She’d kept Jonathan away from home all night, hunting <em>monsters</em>, while the police were telling his mother that his little brother was dead.</p><p>Steve catches up to her and Barb during the break between classes, coming up behind Nancy’s opened locker door as she gets her books, so that when she slams it shut he’s there, smiling. Nancy jumps, pressing a hand to her chest as she breathes out, and pushes away the arm Steve tries to sling across her shoulders. “Don’t <em>do</em> that! You scared the daylights out of me.”</p><p>“Sorry,” Steve says, not sounding terribly sorry, falling into step beside Nancy as she and Barb make their way towards the next class. Barb catches Nancy’s eye, and then rolls hers. “So. Sounds like Byers is out for tonight.”</p><p>Barb stops dead in the middle of the hallway. “<em>Nancy.</em> You told him?”</p><p>Nancy winces.</p><p>“He asked,” Steve says, to Barb. “Look, I – I guess I was kind of an ass, the other night.”</p><p>Barb narrows her eyes at him. “Oh, great, you <em>guess</em> you were <em>kind of</em> an ass. Too late. Carol Perkins already told half the school that I’m still scared of monsters under the bed.”</p><p>It’s Steve’s turn to wince. “Come on, she doesn’t mean anything by it. It’s just how she is. She’s like that to everybody.”</p><p>“Yeah? Even you and Tommy?”</p><p>Steve shrugs, like this should be obvious. Barb gives him a long, disbelieving stare. “Sounds like you need better friends.”</p><p>“You just haven’t given them a chance,” Steve protests.</p><p>“<em>I</em> haven’t given <em>them</em> a chance? Do you remember Tuesday night?”</p><p>“Oh, was – was that giving us a chance? Because what <em>I</em> remember is you sulking all night because Nancy was having fun with somebody who wasn’t you.” Steve shrugs. “I mean, I thought friends were supposed to be happy for you when you’re having a good time with somebody. But I guess I just need better friends.”</p><p>Barb crosses her arms over her chest, and glares him down. “Oh, I can’t wait to see your face when you find out just how real those <em>friendships</em> are.”</p><p>“Okay!” Nancy snaps, pulling away from both of them. “I get it. You don’t like each other. I’m sorry I tried to force it.”</p><p>“Nancy,” Barb says, reproachfully, and Steve starts, “Nance, come on -” but Nancy’s already sick of this.</p><p>“I’m going to be late for history,” she says, and then turns on her heel and stalks off down the hall as fast as she can, leaving them both behind.</p><p>They’re both taller than she is, either of them could catch her up easily, but Nancy puts her head down and pretends she can’t see or hear anything except the door at the end of the hall.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>The chief himself turns up when Jonathan takes his mom to see Will’s body.</p><p>Despite himself, Jonathan’s begrudgingly impressed. Hopper’d really wanted to give them the brush-off when this all started. Had wanted it to just go away. But – his whole attitude’s changed, in just a couple of days. For whatever reason, he’s invested now. The way he talks to Jonathan’s mom is proof enough of that, without even needing Jonathan’s special brand of eavesdropping.</p><p>It feels…worse than usual, listening in on him, on this. Will’s disappearance and – and death has apparently dredged up some long-but-not-deeply-buried pain for the chief. And it’s one thing for Jonathan to have front-row seats to what this is doing to his mom, but – Hopper’s a practical stranger.</p><p>Jonathan does his best to hang back, picking a seat as far across the waiting room as he can, trying to put some distance between them. The waiting room isn’t, unfortunately, big enough for him to get completely out of range, but at least it lets him tune Hopper a little off station. Jonathan doesn’t need to be told that avoiding contact makes him seem rude and standoffish and weird, but – it’s still better.</p><p>It’d be even better if Jonathan could get <em>out</em> of here. But he can’t just go back to school like nothing happened and leave his mom here alone. For all that she won’t stop insisting that Will can’t be dead, for all that finding out she’s not the only one who’s seen the monster has bolstered her confidence, she’s still pretty fragile. Jonathan knows his mom is resilient, but – there’s only so much that <em>anybody</em> can take.</p><p>Hopper sounds like he agrees, based on the way he agrees with barely any resistance when Jonathan says he’s going in with his mom to help ID the body. He’s got pretty much the same impression of Jonathan as everybody else does – rude, standoffish, and weird figure prominently – but he seems as begrudgingly impressed with Jonathan as Jonathan is with him. And he figures Joyce could use a little reassurance right now. Some kind of physical proof that she hasn’t lost <em>everything.</em></p><p>It’s a nice thought. Weirdly considerate, especially coming from the guy who’d told Eleanor Gillespie – out loud – that maybe birds wouldn’t try to nest in her hair if she didn’t go around wearing a bird’s nest on her head.</p><p>Actually, under more ordinary circumstances, that’s one of the few saving graces of being stuck in broadcast range of Hopper. He’s one of the few people in Hawkins who says exactly what’s on his mind and damn the consequences. Which is part of why it’s so incredibly weird to be trapped in the Roane County coroner’s office’s waiting room with the guy, none of them saying a word, while his deepest darkest secrets go fan-dancing across the forefront of his mind.</p><p>Jonathan already knew, of course, about the chief’s daughter. Half the town knows, even though Hopper’s never talked about it. The grapevine in a place like Hawkins is fat and healthy and gets everywhere.</p><p>But Jonathan hadn’t known <em>how</em> she’d died. How interminably long it had taken, and yet how sudden it had been, in the end. How even when you <em>knew</em> something like this was coming, there was no way to ever be ready for it.</p><p>How it wasn’t a surprise that Joyce was going to pieces. How he’d nearly lost his own damn mind. Half-convinced himself of all kinds of crazy, paranoid things. Driven Diane off and damn near landed himself in the nuthouse, chasing ghosts –</p><p>Jonathan folds his arms over his chest, slouches down in the uncomfortable plasticky chair, and stares hard at the bulletin board on the far wall, trying to remember all the lyrics to the song he was listening to in the car last night instead of listening to – all of this. He gives up when he realises that somehow, without his noticing, the song’s morphed into the Clash’s ‘Should I Stay Or Should I Go’.</p><p>“What are we going to have to do?” he asks, and both his mom and Hopper start. Too loud. Of course. For both of them, the only sounds in this room have been the faint scritch of the receptionist’s pen and the rattle of the heater. Jonathan adjusts his volume. “When – when we see him.”</p><p>“You just gotta see if it’s him or not. And if it is, then sign on the dotted line.” Hopper sounds impatient, almost angry, as usual, but he’s privately grateful somebody’d broken the silence. And with a question that wasn’t totally boneheaded, too. It’s high praise coming from him. Jonathan tries not to feel insulted.</p><p>Thankfully, he’s spared having to try to muster up any more scintillating conversational gambits when the receptionist says, “Mrs. Byers? They’re ready for you now.”</p><p>Jonathan’s mom doesn’t say anything, as she pushes herself up from her seat. But she’s already firmly convinced. Whatever she’s going in there to see, it isn’t Will.</p><p>“Mom,” Jonathan says, part reassurance, part warning, as a young man in a state trooper’s uniform ushers them through a glass door leading onto a long, cold hallway.</p><p>His mom looks back over her shoulder to give him a shaky smile. And then she starts down the hallway after the trooper.</p><p>Jonathan lets out a long sigh, and follows.</p><p>And – no matter what his mom thinks, it’s Will. That’s <em>Will</em>, lying there in the metal tray, blue and lifeless.</p><p>And silent. Eerily silent. He and the coroner are both just a little out of Jonathan’s usual range, but – Jonathan’s always been more in tune with Will than with anybody else. He’s always been able to tell, just by walking in the front door, whether his little brother’s anywhere in the house. He’s not used to being this close and not getting even an <em>echo</em> of Will’s constant, bubbling creativity. Of those wells of deep contemplation that Will falls into from time to time. Of whatever song Will’s got stuck in his head this week, that mixes with his mom’s constant low-grade anxious buzz to form a reassuringly familiar background noise that means <em>home</em> somewhere in a secret, sealed-off corner of Jonathan’s heart.</p><p>He’s never going to hear it again.</p><p>He’s never going to hear it again, and Will’s never going to open his eyes and smile and ask Jonathan what <em>he’s</em> thinking, ever, ever again, and <em>there’s</em> the emotion that Jonathan hadn’t been able to find last night, flooding through and over him until he’s sure he’s drowning. He chokes, pressing the back of one hand to his mouth to stuff back a sob, stumbling back from the viewing window.</p><p>But his mom – his mom just takes another step towards the glass.</p><p>“He’s got a birthmark,” she says, like there’s no tiny part of her that’s questioning whether she got it wrong, somehow, like she can’t <em>see</em> that little cold body that Jonathan can’t tear his eyes away from, any more than she can hear the storm that’s tearing up the inside of Jonathan’s head. “On his arm. Can you pull down the sheet?”</p><p>And –</p><p>Even through the violent, nameless feeling that’s battering him on all sides, Jonathan notices something. Because – the monster is real. Both he and his mother have seen it. Barbara Holland saw it. It’s <em>real</em>.</p><p>But it can’t have been what killed Will. Because that thing had had talons, and teeth, and it hadn’t looked like it was any too gentle when it had gone after Barbara. It would have torn a kid like Will to shreds.</p><p>But there isn’t a single scratch anywhere on the body.</p><p>And – Jonathan’s mom’s certainty blooms into righteous fury – <em>it doesn’t have Will’s birthmark</em>.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>The Party slip out to the fields behind the school through the locker rooms before the assembly in the gym even starts. It’s easier than it sounds – it’s always chaos in there right before an assembly anyway, all they have to do is wait for Mrs. Chapman to be distracted yelling at Troy and James to stop grabbing girls’ ankles from behind the bleachers.</p><p>Mike and Lucas and Dustin have more important things to do. And none of them want to hang around and listen to people talk about Will being dead.</p><p>Mike makes them go by his house first to get El. The station wagon’s in the driveway, but when he peeks through the living room window, his mom’s on the phone with a glass of wine. Which means they could drop the bomb on her head and she wouldn’t notice. And sure enough, she doesn’t come to investigate the basement door opening, or it closing behind Mike and El.</p><p>Lucas isn’t too thrilled they took the time to stop for El. There’s still something she’s not telling them. And they’ll be missed at school once the assembly’s over. They don’t have long.</p><p>But they’ve got long enough.</p><p>Mrs. Byers’ car is in the drive, when they roll up on their bikes. But when Mike knocks at the front door, nobody answers. There’s no sign of movement from inside the house.</p><p>“I don’t think they’re here,” Mike says, turning back to the others. Lucas and Dustin are crowded in close behind him, but El, he notices, is hanging back by the bikes. “C’mon. Back door.”</p><p>The back door, like the front door, is locked. But every Party member knows that the wood’s warped enough that if you thump the frame in just the right place, the latch pops open. They file in one by one, on quiet tiptoe just in case, Lucas first and Mike bringing up the rear. El stops just before entering the house, like something’s startled her, looking in at the familiar rooms with something Mike thinks is fear.</p><p>“It’s okay,” he says, holding out a hand to her. “We get in this way all the time. Nobody’s going to mind.”</p><p>El turns those wide eyes on him. And then past him, into the kitchen. The fear in them doesn’t go away. If anything, it gets clearer.</p><p>“Do you want to wait out here?” Mike asks. El’s shaking her head no before he’s even finished the sentence. “Okay. Do you want me to wait out here <em>with</em> you?”</p><p>El just gives him a long, pleading look.</p><p>Mike sighs, and starts to turn to head into the house again. El’s hand snaps out and closes over his wrist, holding him in place. Her grip is surprisingly strong.</p><p>“Mike,” she says, giving him that look again, the one like she’s trying to tell him something without saying anything.</p><p>“I have to go in there,” Mike says, taking a stab in the dark. “There’s nothing to be scared of, okay? It’s just Will’s house. And if he’s here – he <em>is</em> still here, right?”</p><p>El doesn’t look happy. But she nods, once. “Yes.” It’s barely a whisper.</p><p>Mike nods back. “He’s my friend. Whatever’s in there that’s so scary…I can’t leave him in there with it, alone.”</p><p>El gives him another long, long look.</p><p>And then she takes a deep breath, and a step closer to the door, almost plastering herself against Mike’s side. She doesn’t let go of his wrist, but she doesn’t try to hold him back again, and she follows barely a step behind him as they make their way into the house.</p><p>“Where’s their dog?” Dustin asks, from the living room. And then, “Holy <em>shit</em>!”</p><p>“What the hell?” Lucas says, thankfully more confused than scared or horrified, so Mike figures at least it’s probably not something gruesome to do with the dog. “Mike, you gotta come see this.”</p><p>Mike glances back at El. She stares back, mouth set, determined.</p><p>They find the other two in the living room. <em>And</em> the thing they’re so excited about.</p><p>The entire room is hung, wall to wall, with strings upon strings of Christmas lights. Dark, they look like an enormous, ugly spiderweb, covering the entire ceiling. One wall has the whole alphabet painted sloppily across it, one letter for each light.</p><p>“What the…” Mike looks around. “What <em>is</em> this?”</p><p>He looks back over his shoulder for El, and is surprised to find her hovering back in the entry leading into the kitchen. Her fear is clear and obvious, now, almost like an invisible cloud in the air around her. It’s catching, too – a prickle of unease runs up Mike’s spine at the sight of her face, and he barely resists the urge to spin in a circle to check behind him.</p><p>“El?” he asks.</p><p>What El says is the longest set of words Mike’s maybe ever heard her string together at once. She sounds almost on the brink of tears. “We should go. <em>Now</em>.”</p><p>“Why?” Dustin asks, turning his back on the alphabet wall to look at her. “Did Will go somewhere else?”</p><p>El gives him a frozen, frightened look, like a deer caught in the middle of the road, staring into fast-oncoming headlights.</p><p>“Yes,” she says, and Mike wonders why she sounds so defeated.</p><p>Lucas gives his head a shake, frowning at her. “Why are you lying? What are you trying to hide?” He takes one big step in El’s direction, and she flinches, but stands her ground. “Do you even <em>want</em> us to find Will?”</p><p>Mike’s starting to wonder the same thing, a little. But – El looks so…shattered. Like the whole world is falling down around her ears. And she’s so, so scared.</p><p>“Maybe <em>you’re</em> the one who’s lying,” Mike says, and both Dustin and Lucas turn to stare at him in disbelief.</p><p>“Dude. Don’t even joke about that,” Dustin says.</p><p>“Who’s <em>joking?</em>” There’s a faint buzz and a pop as one of the smallest lightbulbs flickers on overhead, and all three boys pause to look up at it, but it doesn’t do anything interesting except turn off again. “You’ve never trusted El. How do we know you’re not just <em>telling</em> us she’s lying so that we don’t trust her either?”</p><p>“Are you for real?” Lucas demands, irritation growing into anger. Another two lights pop on over his head, and then fizzle out. “You’re going to listen to some <em>girl</em> you barely know over your oldest friend? Are you really so lovesick that you can’t see what’s going on here?”</p><p>“Guys,” Dustin says, looking up at the ceiling. Lightbulbs wink on, then wink off, in a steady pattern across the ceiling from the doorway El’s standing in to the alphabet wall, blue-red-green-yellow-blue.</p><p>Mike can’t bring himself to care about them. There’s a wounded fury rising hot and dark in him, made worse by the fact that he can’t entirely say Lucas is wrong. “Why don’t you <em>tell</em> me what you think’s going on?”</p><p>“<em>Guys,</em>” Dustin repeats, gesturing at the alphabet wall, which is flickering and flashing along with the pattern on the ceiling now.</p><p>“Not <em>now</em>, Dustin!” Mike snaps, at the same time as Lucas, staring directly at El, says, “She <em>wants</em> Will gone. She wants to take his place.”</p><p>In the quiet that follows, the hum and buzz of the electricity in the Christmas lights is almost deafening.</p><p>“Take it back,” Mike says.</p><p>Lucas stares him down. “Make me.”</p><p>“Okay, is it just me,” Dustin tries, gamely, “or do those lights look like they’re trying to spell something out?”</p><p>There’s a sudden crackle, and a roar of white noise, as all three of their walkies burst to life all at once. A second later, they’re nearly drowned out by a buzz of blaring static from the TV set, its screen turning on to show a field of fizzing electrical snow.</p><p>Mike isn’t sure what makes him look back over towards the kitchen doorway.</p><p>El’s got her chin down, her eyes glaring up from under furrowed brows in a stare that’s – honestly, a little tiny bit terrifying. Blood drips down from her nose over her upper lip, but she doesn’t move to wipe it away.</p><p>And, without warning, from every speaker all at once, there’s a voice. A familiar voice. Panicked, and breathless, and <em>amazing</em>.</p><p>Will’s voice.</p><p>“Mom? Jonathan? <em>Mom?</em>”</p><p>“…Will?” Lucas says, looking around at the dancing lights with wide, awed eyes.</p><p>“Will!” Mike shouts, cupping his hands around his mouth, and the lights all go dark. Mike’s eyes don’t have time to adjust or blink away the afterimages, though, before they all flare to life again. Every bulb in the bedecked room hums into light again, a low and steady glow that’s getting brighter and brighter by the second.</p><p>“Holy <em>shit</em>,” Dustin breathes.</p><p>El’s hands ball into fists.</p><p>“Mike?” Will’s voice crackles through the speakers. “Guys!”</p><p>“Will!” Mike yells back.</p><p>“Will, we’re coming for you!” Lucas shouts at the ceiling. The lights are so bright now that it’s like – like being on the inside of a lightbulb. Mike has to squint. “Where are you?”</p><p>“Guys…” Mike would’ve expected Will to be excited. But instead, there’s something in his voice, something that almost sounds like…</p><p>Dread.</p><p>The speakers suddenly screech and howl with unexpected feedback. There’s something underneath it, a rumbling growl, that Mike’s never heard before in his life. It’s like a big cat crossed with a helicopter. El flinches at the sound of it, but she doesn’t move out of the doorway.</p><p>“What the shit is <em>that</em>?” Dustin demands, his voice rising to a frightened squeak at the end.</p><p>Will’s shout through the speakers doesn’t exactly answer him. “<em>Run!</em>”</p><p>And all the lights go out.</p><p>There’s a split second of darkness, of silence. And then the lights flash back on, in wild, erratic strobes, dazzling Mike’s vision until he can barely see. That horrible screeching, growling roar comes again, and it takes Mike a second to realise that, this time, it isn’t coming through the speakers.</p><p>It’s in the room with them.</p><p>“<em>Will!</em>” he yells wildly into empty air.</p><p>There’s no answer. The speakers stay dead. But –</p><p>At first Mike thinks it’s just the shifting light, playing tricks on his eyes. But then El screams wordlessly in rage and terror, and Dustin screams “oh shit oh shit oh <em>shit!</em>” in just plain terror, and Mike knows – it’s not just him. The wall by the window is shifting, distorting, like something – like something is pressing against the wallpaper. From <em>inside</em> the wall.</p><p>There’s a horrible ripping sound, like the world’s biggest pair of pants splitting open in the butt, and the wallpaper tears open. Mike watches, frozen, feeling like he’s trapped in a nightmare, as a misshapen grey hand reaches out from the tear, razor-sharp talons scraping along the wallpaper –</p><p>Lucas lets out a furious yell and hits it, hard, with a table lamp.</p><p>The hand twitches, grasping at air, and Lucas hits it again. The base of the lamp snaps in two, and another hand snaps out of the top of the tear in the wallpaper, ripping it farther open. But the spell is broken. Mike can move again, can breathe again.</p><p>“Come on!” he shouts, grabbing Dustin by the arm and spinning him towards the kitchen.</p><p>Dustin starts, like Mike just woke him up from an open-eyed nap. “Mike! Holy shit! Holy shit, that’s the <em>Demogorgon!</em>”</p><p>“Yeah, I noticed! So unless you’ve got a few fireballs up your sleeve, we’ve gotta get <em>out</em> of here!” He turns back towards the monster. “Lucas?”</p><p>Lucas is backing slowly away from the rip in the wallpaper, casting around for another weapon. The hole in the wall shreds open further, a huge grey head forcing its way through, its blank of a face peeling back to reveal – <em>so</em> many teeth –</p><p>El gives a short, wordless scream, and throws out a hand.</p><p>That horrible maw goes flying back like she’d slammed a fist into its dead centre. Its clawed hands scrabble for a grip on the wall even as the wallpaper starts to fold itself back into place. The monster lets out another grinding, squealing roar as Lucas turns and breaks into a run, out of its reach.</p><p>Mike takes that as his cue. He and Dustin both scramble for the doorway too, sliding to a halt behind El for just long enough to let Lucas catch up. Then Mike grabs El by the wrist, pulling her around, and all four of them go flying out the back door.</p><p>They run, around the house, towards the bikes and escape. They don’t stop running until El stumbles and drops to her knees, hard, on the grass. Mike’s heart is galloping, his breath burning in his chest. It feels like they’ve run a million miles. But when he looks back, they can’t be more than ten feet from the house.</p><p>There’s a last echo of rattling, squealing growl, a last flicker of coloured light from the living room window. And then Will’s house is still and silent again.</p><p>For a moment, nobody says anything. They’re all too busy catching their breath. El raises an arm and scrubs the blood off her face with the sleeve of the jacket she’s borrowed from Mike. She doesn’t try to get up. Apparently throwing the Demogorgon back into wherever it comes from took a lot out of her.</p><p>“Are you all right?” Mike asks, and she looks up at him with frozen fear in her eyes. “Was that what you were so scared of?”</p><p>El looks at him, long and hard, and then nods, once. She doesn’t relax, but Mike thinks the fear in her eyes is starting to thaw.</p><p>Which, of course, is where Lucas butts in.</p><p>“You knew that thing was going to be there?” he demands, furious, as Mike offers El a hand to help her to her feet. “And you didn’t warn us?”</p><p>“She tried to!” Mike protests.</p><p>“Yeah? Like she <em>tried</em> to tell us Will wasn’t here anymore?”</p><p>“That…<em>was</em> pretty fishy, Mike,” Dustin admits, reluctantly.</p><p>“She was just trying to get us to leave! She didn’t want to lie to us!” Mike looks over to El. “Right?”</p><p>“Friends don’t lie,” El agrees, in a guilty whisper, her chin sinking towards her chest.</p><p>“Then why didn’t you just <em>tell</em> us about the Demogorgon?” Lucas says, throwing a hand out towards the house.</p><p>“Lucas. Come on. You would’ve gone in there anyway,” Dustin says. He’s not wrong, which only makes Lucas madder.</p><p>“Yeah, but then we would’ve known to bring <em>actual</em> weapons, not just come straight from school! We could’ve protected ourselves! We could’ve fought back!” Lucas takes a step towards El, who sucks in a sharp breath, going stiff, and glares back at him. “What else haven’t you told us? What <em>else</em> are you hiding that could get us all killed?”</p><p>El doesn’t move, doesn’t take her eyes off Lucas’ face. Lucas glares right back, hands in fists at his sides, nearly vibrating with anger.</p><p>Actually, El’s nearly vibrating too. For a moment Mike thinks it’s anger, and then he thinks maybe it’s fear, but – even though both of those are there, neither of them totally fits. El’s shaking like she’s trying to hold up something enormously heavy, like – like she’s trying to push something solid and invisible away from herself. She doesn’t move, but from the set of her face, Mike can tell her jaw is clenched tight. She doesn’t blink.</p><p>Somehow, Mike isn’t surprised when a fresh bead of blood creeps down from her nose.</p><p>But - nothing moves. Nothing hovers. The walkies don’t crackle back to life. There’s just this – weird <em>tension</em>, almost like a deep bass note, that’s got Dustin looking around nervously, like he’s expecting the Demogorgon to come tearing out of nowhere again and rip them all to shreds. Mike feels the same way, but he doesn’t dare take his eyes off El and Lucas. He wants whatever’s happening to <em>stop</em>, but he has the feeling that, if he got in between them right now, his head might just spontaneously explode.</p><p>And then Lucas snaps “<em>Tell</em> us!” and El shouts, “It’s my fault! I let it in!”</p><p>In the shocked silence that follows, she claps both hands over her mouth. Her eyes, over her hands, are as wide as Mike’s ever seen them and brimming with horror. He’s not sure why, but he has the weirdest feeling that she hadn’t meant to say it.</p><p>Dustin’s looking back and forth between Lucas and El with awe. But Lucas doesn’t seem to want to take his eyes off El’s face any more than Mike does.</p><p>“That monster,” he says. “<em>You</em> brought it here?”</p><p>“Yes!” El all but sobs. Her face is crumpling, but her glare is still piercing as she balls her hands into fists at her sides.</p><p>“Why?” Mike asks, and El looks at him like she’s seeing him for the first and last time, like she’s trying to memorize the sight of him. “Why would you do that?”</p><p>El just gives him that pleading look, that read-my-mind look. Her face is an open book, and the only thing written in it is pain.</p><p>“Mike,” she says, but – she’d lied. She’d <em>lied</em>.</p><p>Mike shakes his head. “That thing could’ve killed all of us! It <em>took</em> Will! You’ve been helping us look for him, and all this time you’ve been the reason he’s missing?”</p><p>El takes a stumbling step back, like she’d been slapped.</p><p>She turns that wide-eyed, horrified look on Mike for just a moment before spinning and starting to march towards the trees, a grim determination in the set of her shoulders and the angle of her head.</p><p>They can’t let her go. There are still a million things they need to ask her. Where the Demogorgon came from, and how they can send it back there for good. Where Will really <em>is</em>. How they can get to him. Get him back.</p><p>But Mike isn’t thinking about any of that, when he runs after El, when he reaches out to grab her by the arm. What he really wants to know is just – <em>why</em>.</p><p>He doesn’t get a chance to ask.</p><p>His hand barely closes on her arm before she whirls, glaring him down. There’s pure venom in her dark eyes. For the first time since his flashlight had caught her face in the woods that night, Mike’s really afraid of her.</p><p>But he only has a split second to take in the look on her face before suddenly, he’s airborne.</p><p>Hitting the ground hurts. A <em>lot</em>. Mike lies on his back, staring up at the crisp blue November sky, and struggles to get a breath into his lungs. He’s not sure where he’s landed. He’s not entirely sure all his limbs are still attached.</p><p>It takes him a moment to register that Dustin and Lucas are both shouting his name.</p><p>Mike manages to sit up, as the other two run up to meet him. El’s thrown him clear across the drive, almost into the Byers’ yard light. No wonder he hurts all over.</p><p>Dustin breaks into a broad, relieved smile as he hits his knees in the grass beside Mike. “Don’t sit up,” he warns, too late. “I read somewhere, if you have a spinal injury -”</p><p>“What is <em>wrong</em> with the weirdo!” Lucas fumes, drawing up on Mike’s other side. “Mike. Are you all right?”</p><p>“She’s a weirdo,” Dustin says, like it should be obvious, holding a hand up in front of Mike’s face. “How many fingers am I holding up?”</p><p>Mike brushes Dustin’s hand away, trying to get to his feet. His first attempt reveals a vicious, throbbing pain in his left ankle, and he goes down again with a yelp.</p><p>“Dude,” Dustin says, all concerned, sounding a little too much like Mike’s mom. “Sit still for a minute, okay? You got like -” He breaks off his own sentence to mime one fist smacking into the flat of his other hand, and the second hand going flying with a <em>pchow!</em> sound effect.</p><p>“We can’t just let her leave!” Mike tries again to get up, despite Dustin’s protests. “How are we supposed to rescue Will without her?”</p><p>Lucas is already shaking his head. “We’re better off without that traitor in our midst. We never should have trusted her in the first place.”</p><p>Mike opens his mouth to argue, but Dustin interrupts him, suddenly serious. “Lucas.”</p><p>Lucas shrugs, a wordless question. Dustin narrows concerned eyes at him. “You’re bleeding.” He waves a hand vaguely in the air in front of his own nose.</p><p>Lucas squints back at Dustin, clearly confused. But Mike sees it too, now that there’s nothing else going on to distract him.</p><p>So when Lucas swipes the back of one hand under his nose, he’s the only one surprised when it comes away bloody.</p><p>“…huh,” he says, after looking at it for a moment. “Weird.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Dustin says. His concerned frown is starting to get thoughtful, the way it does when he’s got an idea for a new science experiment that’s going to get them all banned for life from yet another of their basements. “Weird.”</p><p>Lucas gives a little shake of his head, and wipes his hand off on his jeans. “Well, it’s stopped now.” He turns his attention back to Mike, looking at Mike’s injured leg with a grimace. “Think you can bike back to school?”</p><p>Mike leans heavily on Dustin’s shoulder, this time, and manages to get all the way to his feet. “Think I’m gonna have to try.”</p><p>And that’s when they hear the rumble of a car engine pulling into the drive behind them.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>Signing on the dotted line is the hardest thing Joyce has ever done.</p><p>That – that <em>thing</em> in the morgue is not her son. She’d known that, but now she’s <em>sure</em>. And signing her name to an official document saying that it <em>is</em>, that it’s Will, that Will is <em>dead</em> –</p><p>For a moment, she almost refuses. She almost throws the pen down and storms out of the coroner’s office. But then Jonathan catches her eye and gives the tiniest shake of his head.</p><p>They’d talked about this, last night, and he’d made a good point. If somebody really has gone to the trouble of faking Will’s death, complete with body – and a really goddamn convincing one, Joyce’s skin is still crawling – then there’s so much more to this than they know. She’s worked so hard all these years to keep her boys under the radar. Joyce is all too aware that the only reason Lonnie hadn’t used her anxiety, her family history, against her in the custody agreement was because he didn’t want the boys full-time. If the courts find out that Joyce thinks her sons have <em>psychic powers</em>, she’ll never see either of them again.</p><p>And there’s long been a huge, nameless dread in her of who <em>else</em> might be interested in what they can do, of what someone might be willing to do to get their hands on Will’s or Jonathan’s – talents. A dread that seems to be becoming a reality, right in front of her.</p><p>If this really is some kind of coverup, if someone really has stolen Will away – Joyce and Jonathan will both be safer if they act like they’re buying it. <em>Will</em> could be safer if they act like they’re buying it. And the less whoever’s behind this feels like they have to watch Joyce, the better the chance that she can find out what’s really going on. That she can get Will <em>back</em>.</p><p>It all makes sense. But she still sees Jonathan try and fail to hide a wince at the scream that echoes around her head, as she scrawls her name and pushes the clipboard back at the helpful young state trooper.</p><p>She leans into Jonathan’s side as they make their way out of the building, suddenly drained of all energy. It’s just – this is all so much bigger than she is, than any of them are. And Will – God, <em>Will</em> –</p><p>Jonathan puts his arm around her, warm and solid and reassuring, and Joyce manages somehow not to break down into tears as he steers her gently towards the car.</p><p>“Did – did they give anything away?” she asks, under her breath, as they stop on the sidewalk. She remembers, a second too late, that she hadn’t needed to say it out loud at all.</p><p>Jonathan shakes his head. “That trooper didn’t know anything wasn’t right about it, although he thought it was a little weird the state took the case. Neither did the receptionist. I never got close enough to the coroner -”</p><p>“Hey. You two.”</p><p>Joyce looks back over her shoulder, and is a little surprised to see Hopper puff to a halt a few feet behind them. He looks about as uncomfortable as a man can look, but doesn’t seem to let it stop him from asking, “So…it was him?”</p><p>Joyce signed her name to it, but she can’t bring herself to say it. “It – definitely does look like him.”</p><p>Hopper’s frown gets deeper. “You’re not still thinking he’s not -”</p><p>“Dead?” Joyce finishes for him, sharply, with a smile that hurts her face and quickly falls away. “Don’t worry about it, Hopper. We’ll have a funeral and everything. And then your quiet little town can go back to being quiet, and you can go right back to putting your feet up and not giving a damn what goes on under your nose. Okay?”</p><p>It’s not fair. It’s not fair, and Joyce knows it, but – he failed her. He failed <em>Will</em>. Everyone who was supposed to protect Will, keep him safe, has failed him. Even her. And now Joyce is stuck standing here, having to pretend for all the world to see that her baby boy is dead when he’s <em>not</em>, he’s <em>there</em>, somewhere just out of her reach –</p><p>Jonathan’s grip tightens on Joyce’s shoulder, and she forces herself to take a deep breath. To rein in the liquid fury that seems to have been shot straight into her veins.</p><p>She glances up at Jonathan, expecting to see a warning look or a reassuring smile turned in her direction. She’s surprised – and horrified – to find that, instead, he’s got a hard, suspicious gaze fixed on Hopper’s face.</p><p>He can’t be. He <em>can’t</em> be. Joyce had <em>trusted</em> him. If he <em>knows</em> – if he’s part of this – if he knows where Will is, what happened to him, if – if he’s known all this time, all the while he’s been reassuring her and brushing her off and telling her she sounds <em>crazy</em> –</p><p>“Joyce,” Hopper says, low and so carefully kind.</p><p>“Mom,” Jonathan says, before Joyce can start screaming. “You’ve got it backwards.”</p><p>It would seem like a complete non-sequitur to anybody who didn’t know what was going on inside Joyce’s head. And sure enough, Hopper’s concern quickly turns into confusion. “What?”</p><p>Jonathan looks him in the eye, and says, “They brought somebody in from state to do the autopsy.”</p><p>“What?” Hopper repeats. “They told you that back in there?”</p><p>“No,” Jonathan says, before Joyce can tell him to <em>stop it</em>. “You did.”</p><p>Hopper’s frown goes from confused to downright suspicious. “I didn’t tell you -”</p><p>“Jonathan, get in the car,” Joyce interrupts. What was the <em>point</em> of making her sign that awful document if he’s just going to stand here in the middle of the street and tell God and everyone what he can do? Does he want to disappear too?</p><p>Jonathan meets Joyce’s eyes, and – there’s a flicker of guilt there, but less than she would have expected. “Mom…trust me.”</p><p>“Jonathan -” She can’t lose him too. She can’t lose them both.</p><p>Jonathan must know what it means, how serious it is, when he adds, “For Will’s sake.”</p><p>Joyce gives him a long, long look.</p><p>But – he knows things about people that she can’t. If – if he’s <em>sure</em> –</p><p>Jonathan nods, as he pulls away from Joyce’s side, walking around to the driver’s side door. Joyce takes it as a <em>yes, I’m sure.</em></p><p>Hopper’s looking at them both with open suspicion, now. “What are you two not telling me,” he says. And then, surprisingly gentle, “Joyce, trust me. <em>Trust</em> me, you do <em>not</em> want to take this into your own hands. It can’t turn out good. If there’s something about all this that still doesn’t sit right with you – talk to somebody. You’re – you’re still friends with Karen Wheeler, right?”</p><p>For a split second, Joyce imagines stepping on him like a beetle. Imagines spitting right in his face.</p><p>“I’m <em>not</em> crazy,” she says, with all the conviction she can muster.</p><p>The look she gets in return isn’t quite pity. “Never said you were. But – speaking from experience. It’s not a great idea for you to be alone right now.”</p><p>“Perfect,” Jonathan says, swinging open the driver’s side door. “Then you can meet us back at the house.”</p><p>“Whoa, hey, I didn’t say -”</p><p>“Meet us,” Jonathan repeats, a little more insistently, “back at the <em>house</em>.” And then, when the hunted look Hopper had got when Jonathan had offered the invitation starts to settle back into his usual scowl, “There’s some things we all need to talk about. About Sara. I think maybe we can help you, too.”</p><p>He doesn’t wait for an answer, just climbs into the car and slams the door behind him. Joyce hastily climbs in the passenger side, and Jonathan peels away from the curb.</p><p>Joyce looks back, just once. “Do you really think he’ll come?”</p><p>Jonathan doesn’t take his eyes off the road. “He will.”</p><p>“What <em>was</em> all that? Sara – that’s his daughter. She’s <em>dead</em>, Jonathan, why did you say you thought we could help him?”</p><p>Jonathan’s silent for a moment. And then, he says, “I wasn’t trying to listen.”</p><p>“Honey, it’s all right, I know you can’t turn it off. What did you hear?”</p><p>Jonathan doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he fiddles with the stereo, finally settling on a rock and roll song Joyce doesn’t recognise but kind of likes.</p><p>“His little girl,” he says, reluctantly.</p><p>“What about her?”</p><p>“This brought it all back. <em>You</em> brought it all back. Mom, he was telling you not to take it into your own hands because – because he <em>did</em>.”</p><p>“What?” Joyce asks. But she has a sinking feeling that she can guess.</p><p>Jonathan turns to shoot her a haunted look, before turning onto Randolph and towards home.</p><p>The song rollicks through another chorus before he says, “She was – special, too. Like – like Will.”</p><p>Whatever Joyce had been expecting, it wasn’t that.</p><p>“He never really knew for sure,” Jonathan goes on, doggedly. “But something about me, about what I said back there, made him think of her. Of stuff she did that he couldn’t explain, that he’s half-convinced himself he imagined. Mom, somebody’s done a <em>number</em> on him. He doesn’t trust a single thing he remembers about her or a whole year after he lost her.” He gives his head a shake, like he’s trying to brush away the thoughts. “The inside of his head – it’s a <em>mess</em>. No wonder he never wants to think about her.”</p><p>“She was special,” Joyce echoes, dully. It’s the only part of what Jonathan’s had to say that’s really made it into her head. “Like Will. Sara was special.”</p><p>Jonathan nods.</p><p>
  <em>There’s a reason we don’t talk about it.</em>
</p><p>“Yeah,” Jonathan says, like it’s an apology. “Yeah. And…Hopper didn’t think she was really dead.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Mike? What’re you doing here?”</p>
<p>“What’re <em>you</em> doing here?” Mike shoots back. It’s actually a better question than he’d realised. “Hey, what <em>are</em> you doing here? You and Will’s brother aren’t friends.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, thanks for the reminder.” Somehow, Steve Harrington manages to sound both offended and confused. “I need to see him. For a…project.”</p>
<p>“A project,” Mike says, crossing his arms over his chest. He doesn’t like Steve at the best of times. Turning up out of the blue to a place he has no reason to be, where Mike’s just nearly been eaten by a monster and <em>has</em> been betrayed by somebody he was stupid enough to call a friend, is not winning him any points in Mike’s book.</p>
<p>“For Nancy,” Steve admits, reluctantly, and, okay, so <em>maybe</em> he could have a reason to be here. Just not a <em>good</em> one. And since when did Will’s big brother have anything to do with Mike’s big sister? “It’s a – thing, with a photo, and – look, are they home or not?”</p>
<p>“Not,” Dustin says, raising a hand in greeting. “Hi, Steve.”</p>
<p>“Henderson,” Steve says, with a nod in Dustin’s direction. “It…<em>is</em> Henderson, right?”</p>
<p>“I thought you thought he was a douchebag?” Lucas says in a stage whisper, nudging Dustin with his elbow, and Dustin fixes him with an affronted look.</p>
<p>“It never <em>hurts</em> to be <em>polite</em>, Lucas!”</p>
<p>Steve looks back and forth between the three of them with that same confused glower. Mike’s not sure, but for some reason, he thinks Steve’s struggling not to laugh.</p>
<p>“All right,” Steve says. “Well, if nobody’s home, then this douchebag is headed back into town. Anybody need a ride?”</p>
<p>Dustin gestures at him with both hands open and his palms up, giving Lucas a look, like Steve’s just proven his point.</p>
<p>“No,” Mike says, at the same time as Dustin says, “Yes.”</p>
<p>Mike fixes his second friend to turn traitor with a glare, but Dustin is undaunted. “Mike, you could barely stand up just now. Do you really think you’re going to be able to bike back to school?”</p>
<p>“Whoa, wait,” Steve says, frowning at Mike with apparently genuine concern. “Can’t stand up? That sounds serious -”</p>
<p>“It’s just my ankle,” Mike interrupts. “It’s nothing. I’m fine. I <em>don’t</em> need a ride.” At least, not from <em>Steve</em>.</p>
<p>“Your ankle? What’d you do?”</p>
<p>“Fell,” Mike says, after a moment’s thought.</p>
<p>Steve looks around at the perfectly flat yard, the porch with its single step, and the bikes all the way on the other side of the drive where they’d clearly been carefully parked and not crashed, and obviously decides it’s not worth pushing it. “…okay. Well, the Beemer seats four. Five if they’re small. And if you try to bike it, no way you’re making it back to school before the last bell. Especially not on a broken ankle.”</p>
<p>“It’s not broken. I’m <em>fine</em>. Why are you doing this?” Mike narrows his eyes at Steve in suspicion. It doesn’t actually give him any clearer of a view, of either Steve <em>or</em> his motives, but hopefully it makes him look very intimidating.</p>
<p>Steve shrugs, not at all intimidated. “A guy can’t want to do something nice for his girlfriend’s little brother?”</p>
<p>“Maybe some <em>other</em> guy,” Mike says. Lucas nods agreement. “C’mon, why are you really doing this?”</p>
<p>Steve gives them both a considering look.</p>
<p>“Fine,” he says. “Just for the record, I <em>am</em> trying to be a decent person here.” He meets three identical, disbelieving stares, and admits, “And…I also really need to score some brownie points with Nancy right about now.”</p>
<p>Mike can feel his eyebrows reaching towards his hairline. “You’re not going to get those sucking up to <em>me</em>.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, but – you’re here, I’m here, you’ve got a busted leg, I’ve got a car…” Steve shrugs. “You do the math.”</p>
<p>“I already told you.” Mike turns, and starts to take a step forwards, towards the bikes. “I’m <em>fi-</em>”</p>
<p>He steps wrong. There’s a stab of pain through his ankle, his leg buckles under him, and he eats gravel.</p>
<p>Mike shoves away the hands that try to help him up. Facedown in the Byers’ drive, he can’t tell if any of them belong to <em>Steve</em>.</p>
<p>“Oh, yeah,” Lucas says, just a lot too amused, as Mike pushes himself up. “You’re <em>just</em> fine.”</p>
<p>“Whose side are you even on, anyway?” Mike manages to get his feet back under him, and takes one careful step. This time, he doesn’t end up faceplanting, but the awkward shuffling limp he manages is not great either.</p>
<p>He sighs as he turns around. Steve’s at least got the decency not to say anything, although his supercilious smile kind of says it all for him.</p>
<p>“<em>Fine</em>,” Mike grinds out, between clenched teeth. “You win. Can you fit three bikes in your trunk?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Barb meets Nancy at her locker after class. Nancy is bitterly unsurprised to see that there’s no sign of Steve.</p>
<p>“Do you even want to bother going over to the library?” Barb asks, leaning back against the bank of lockers next to Nancy’s. Paul Corey shoots her a glare as he walks up, and she huffs and shifts over so he can get into his locker. “I mean, we didn’t find anything last night. And Jonathan’s obviously not going to be joining us.”</p>
<p>Nancy pulls out her bag and slams her locker door. “I thought we could look at the news archives. We can’t be the only people who’ve ever seen this thing.”</p>
<p>“Oh, we’re not,” Barb says, confidently. “But you’re not going to find it in the <em>paper</em>.”</p>
<p>“Is that a prediction, or – a <em>prediction</em>?”</p>
<p>Barb gives Nancy a look that Nancy can’t read. “Nancy. You’ve never been weird about this before. Don’t get weird on me now.”</p>
<p>Paul gives her a funny look as he shuts his locker door, and Barb and Nancy both glare at him until he shrugs and walks away.</p>
<p>“I won’t be weird about it if you’ll stop being weird about me and Steve,” Nancy says, hiking her bag up on her shoulder as she follows Barb over to her locker.</p>
<p>Barb shoots her a look, eyebrows rising. “Oh, so it’s <em>me and Steve</em> now, is it? What happened to ‘we’re not going out’?”</p>
<p>“We’re <em>not</em>,” Nancy insists. It’s her turn to lean back against the lockers while Barb tosses her books into her locker and rummages around for her things. “But…I don’t know. I was kind of starting to think maybe we could.”</p>
<p>Barb’s eyebrows rise even higher. “You <em>were</em> starting to think?”</p>
<p>Nancy shrugs one shoulder, turning to look down the hall, away from Barb. “Well, he’s not here, is he?” She tosses her hair back over her shoulder as she turns back to Barb. “If he can’t even try to get along with my friends, then it’s going nowhere fast anyway.”</p>
<p>She must not do a good enough job covering up the disappointment in it, because Barb gives her a pitying look. Nancy frowns at her until she wipes it off her face.</p>
<p>“Look, Nancy,” Barb says, uncharacteristically serious, shutting her locker door and turning to look Nancy in the eye. “Do you really like him?”</p>
<p>“What kind of a question is that?” Nancy asks, trying to muster up a laugh and getting something closer to a scoff.</p>
<p>“Uh, the obvious one?” Barb shakes her head. “Look, this just – it all kind of came out of nowhere. We had a really good laugh about it when it was Ally going gaga over Steve last year, and then I turn around and you’re <em>dating</em> him? And won’t even say you’re dating?”</p>
<p>“Because we’re <em>not</em>,” Nancy protests.</p>
<p>Barb’s stare is piercing. “You’re not.”</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>“But you’ll go over to his house for a party when his parents aren’t home. Come on, Nancy. You didn’t need to see the future to know where <em>that</em> was going.”</p>
<p>Nancy shifts, suddenly uncomfortable, wrapping her arms around her middle. “How is that even any of your business?”</p>
<p>Barb gives her a long, flat look. “Because you made it my business? You <em>made</em> me go with you to that stupid party to keep you from doing, and I quote, anything you might regret. And then you shotgunned a beer and blew me off to go upstairs, <em>alone</em>, with <em>Steve Harrington</em>.”</p>
<p>“You weren’t there to <em>babysit</em> me!”</p>
<p>“I was <em>worried</em> about you.” Barb turns, and starts to walk away, down the hall towards the double doors. “Sorry if that makes me a buzzkill.”</p>
<p>Nancy hurries to catch up with her.</p>
<p>Neither of them say anything more until they’re out, in the crisp autumn air. The sunlight is like honey, lying thick and golden over everything. It’s warm on Nancy’s shoulders, but there’s a bite of cold in the air, especially when they walk through the long fingers of shadow cast by the trees.</p>
<p>“You were moving really fast, with Steve,” Barb says, at last, as they draw up to her car. “It’s not like you. And he’s got a lot more…experience in that department than you do.”</p>
<p>Nancy shakes her head. “I can handle myself.”</p>
<p>“I’m sure Laurie and Becky and Amy all thought that too.”</p>
<p>Nancy doesn’t have anything to say to that.</p>
<p>But Barb isn’t finished. “I don’t know what Steve’s deal is, but – people act different around him, Nancy. <em>You</em> act different around him. And – you’re my best friend. I don’t want you to change.” She turns her face away, looking down as she unlocks the car door. Nancy thinks maybe she wasn’t really meant to hear when Barb adds, under her breath, “Because maybe then you won’t be my best friend anymore.”</p>
<p>Nancy bites her bottom lip, and curls both hands around her bag’s strap, looking down at the asphalt. There’s a drift of orange leaves trapped against the curb in front of the car that look like they’d crunch impressively if Nancy stepped on them. Abruptly, she wishes she was just a little kid again, and didn’t have anything to worry about but homework and stomping on every leaf she saw.</p>
<p>“You’re my best friend too,” she says, looking back up at Barb. “No <em>boy</em> is going to change that. Okay? Not even Steve Harrington.”</p>
<p>Barb shrugs, but there’s a ghost of a smile playing around her lips. “I don’t know. I mean, have you <em>seen</em> his hair?”</p>
<p>Nancy laughs. Barb laughs, too, clear and relieved, and swings the car door open.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>“Hop -” Joyce reaches out for his arm, but Hopper pulls back.</p>
<p>“<em>No.</em> Joyce, I was <em>fucked up</em>. I was just looking for anything to – to mean that it didn’t have to be real, to keep me from having to face it. It was completely paranoid and delusional to even think -” He bites his own sentence off with a huff, spinning the mug of coffee she’d made him against the table top with both hands. “You can’t take what I thought then as proof of <em>anything</em>. How the hell’d you even find out? Have you been talking to Diane?”</p>
<p>“No.” Joyce looks over at Jonathan, but he doesn’t come to her rescue. “Please. I know Sara was – different -”</p>
<p>“<em>Sara</em>,” Hopper interrupts, with a kind of cold, grim anger, “was a sick little girl. And now she’s dead. And I won’t insult her memory by bringing up all this old conspiracy-theory crap again.”</p>
<p>“Is Terry Ives conspiracy-theory crap?” Jonathan says, quietly, and Joyce is astonished to see something she hasn’t seen since high school.</p>
<p>Hopper looks <em>scared</em>.</p>
<p>“How the <em>fuck</em> do you know about that,” he says, barely above a whisper. And then, that anger flaring hot, “Is this seriously what you’ve been doing? While your mom’s breaking down and everybody’s busting their asses trying to find your little brother, you’ve been digging up crackpot news stories from a decade ago?”</p>
<p>He doesn’t wait for Jonathan to answer, shaking his head as he gets up from the kitchen table. “I can’t – Joyce. I’m sorry. I <em>can’t</em> do this again. Whatever kind of fucked up folie-a-deux thing you two’ve got going on here, leave me the hell out of it.” He meets Joyce’s eyes, sounding almost apologetic as he says, “Thanks for the coffee.”</p>
<p>He turns to leave, and Jonathan says, “She asked for your help.”</p>
<p>Hopper freezes, steps from the door. He doesn’t turn back to face them, but Joyce sees the way his spine goes stiff.</p>
<p>“Terry Ives asked for your help,” Jonathan repeats, ruthlessly. “You still don’t know how she found you, how she found out about Sara, but she did. And she came to you.”</p>
<p>“How do you know about that,” Hopper breathes out, turning slowly. Joyce takes in the look on his face and thinks, in that moment, he’d cheerfully murder Jonathan to make him stop talking. “<em>Nobody</em> knows about that. <em>How do you know about that?</em>”</p>
<p>Jonathan stares him down and doesn’t answer the question. “About twelve years back. She was suing the government. For stealing her baby. It was after Sara, after… She asked you to testify as a witness for her. And <em>you</em> told her -”</p>
<p>“What the fuck is this,” Hopper demands, but he’s white as a sheet. “Joyce? What the <em>fuck</em> is this?”</p>
<p>Joyce tries to muster up a smile. It comes out as a grimace.</p>
<p>“You were right about Sara,” she says. “You were right about her all along. And she’s not the only one.” She bites down on her bottom lip before saying, “It wasn’t Will’s body. <em>Please</em>. You have to believe us.”</p>
<p>“You honestly buy this. You honestly think – what, the, the <em>government</em> stole your kid?”</p>
<p>“<em>You</em> do,” Jonathan says, still flat, dispassionate. “Why else would the state have taken over the case, if it was nothing but another small-town tragedy? Why else would the lab be hiding the security footage from the night Will went missing? It <em>did</em> rain that night, you’re not misremembering. And it <em>is </em>suspicious that the doctor Terry was suing is running the place.”</p>
<p>“How – the <em>fuck -</em>”</p>
<p>“Like Mom said.” Joyce’s mouth is dry, her palms sweaty with fear, but Jonathan – Jonathan actually <em>smiles</em> a little as he gives up the secret they’ve been so carefully guarding for his entire life. “Sara’s not the only one. And neither is Will.”</p>
<p>For a moment, nobody moves. Nobody says a word.</p>
<p>Finally, Hopper lets out a big gust of breath and walks back over to the table, leaning heavily with both hands on the back of the kitchen chair he’d just vacated. “Do you two…know what <em>happened</em> to Terry Ives?” he asks, almost conversationally, though Joyce can read tension, almost threat, in everything about the way he’s standing.</p>
<p>Jonathan’s eyes widen, slightly, and a grim smile flickers across Hopper’s face. “You do now, huh?” He jerks his head in Joyce’s direction. “Go on. Tell her.”</p>
<p>“You know, if you wanted to test me, you could’ve just asked me to guess what number you were thinking of,” Jonathan mutters.</p>
<p>There’s a horrible sinking dread clawing at the pit of Joyce’s stomach. “Jonathan,” she says, and Jonathan reaches over to take her hand.</p>
<p>“She’s alive,” he says, giving her hand a squeeze.</p>
<p>Hopper snorts something that’s almost a laugh. “If you can call that living.”</p>
<p>“Well, whatever it is, it – it can’t be worse than what I’m <em>imagining</em> now!”</p>
<p>“She’s…locked in,” Jonathan says, like it’s an apology, looking Joyce hard in the eyes. “Catatonic. Doesn’t move much, doesn’t speak, doesn’t respond to anything… I don’t know what could do that to somebody or how, but – she’s alive, but she’s not…<em>here</em> anymore.”</p>
<p>Joyce has to swallow, hard, to force down the bile that threatens to rise in her throat.</p>
<p>Hopper scrubs a hand down his face, holding it over his mouth for a long moment as he stares at Jonathan, like he can’t believe what he’s seeing. Which, Joyce thinks, is probably exactly the case.</p>
<p>“Jesus,” he says, finally. “That’s the <em>last</em> time I chase those meds with a beer.”</p>
<p>“This is real,” Joyce says, as reassuringly as she can manage. She needs a cigarette. She <em>needs</em> a cigarette, right <em>now</em>, like she needs to breathe. That – that anyone could be monstrous enough to steal someone’s <em>child</em>, and then, when they put up a fight, to break them down to nothing from the inside out – “Hop, this is real. It’s all real.”</p>
<p>“Joyce -” Hopper gives his head a shake. “Your kid just <em>read</em> my damn <em>mind</em>.”</p>
<p>Joyce presses her lips together, and then tries a wide-eyed smile, eyebrows raised, a wordless ‘what’re you going to do’. “He does that.”</p>
<p>Hopper stares at her.</p>
<p>“I need a drink,” he says, finally. “A smoke. <em>Something</em>.”</p>
<p>“I’ve got half a pack of Camels around here somewhere,” Joyce says.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In the end, they can only fit two of the bikes in Steve’s trunk.</p>
<p>They’re on their way back to school. Dustin’s in the middle of expounding his thesis on the relative merits of Almond Joy versus Three Musketeers bars (both disgusting, if you ask anyone else in the car) when Mike sees it.</p>
<p>“Stop the car!” he yells. And then, when Steve doesn’t immediately stomp on the brakes, he leans across into the driver’s seat and tries to grab the wheel.</p>
<p>“Hey! What the -” Steve tries to jerk the wheel out of Mike’s grip, which does not work as intended. The pickup coming in the opposite direction lays on the horn, and Steve barely manages to swerve back out of the oncoming lane and pull over to the curb, rolling to a stop.</p>
<p>“Jesus, Wheeler! I knew you didn’t <em>like</em> me, but enough to go kamikaze on me?”</p>
<p>Mike ignores him. He swings open the passenger door, and starts to lunge out onto the sidewalk –</p>
<p>And is abruptly reminded by his ankle of why he’d accepted a ride from Steve Harrington of all people in the first place.</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter anyway, Mike realises, looking back along the street. He’s too late.</p>
<p>El’s already gone.</p>
<p>“What the hell, Mike!” Dustin says, leaning over the front seat, as much curious as he is angry. “If you wanna crash cars, can you wait until you start driving to do it?”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Lucas agrees. “And until <em>we’re</em> not in the backseat!”</p>
<p>El’s already gone, but the crowd gathering around the entrance of the Big Buy aren’t. The doors Mike had seen slam closed behind El with her armful of Eggos are lying in glittering shards all over the sidewalk, and there are a couple of people gathered around the manager, who’s got one hand pressed against his nose and the other angrily batting the others away.</p>
<p>“It was El,” Mike says, twisting around in his seat so he can look at his friends. “She was just there. Back at the Big Buy.”</p>
<p>Lucas groans in frustration, letting his head falls back as he drops back into his seat. “Keep driving, Steve.”</p>
<p>Steve doesn’t move, except to frown at each of them in turn. “El?”</p>
<p>“She’s our friend,” Mike says, and Lucas chokes.</p>
<p>“She is <em>not</em> our friend. She’s a traitor, and a liar!”</p>
<p>Steve looks back and forth between them, and then, when neither Mike or Lucas offers any more explanation, cocks an eyebrow at Dustin. “Some, uh…complicated middle school politics there, huh?”</p>
<p>Dustin gives his head a slow, solemn shake, and Steve’s arm a pat, like some kind of wise old mentor internally laughing at the foolishness of his rash young student. “Steven, my friend…you have no idea.”</p>
<p>Steve gives him a look, like he can’t decide whether to be offended or impressed by Dustin’s audacity.</p>
<p>In the end, he seems to decide that the safest course of action is just to act like it didn’t happen. He looks back over his shoulder towards the Big Buy, and kills the BMW’s engine. “What’s going on back there?”</p>
<p>“Nothing,” Mike says, hastily, trying to look innocent.</p>
<p>The look Steve gives him says loud and clear that he doesn’t believe <em>that</em> for one second. “Uh <em>huh</em>.” He pulls the keys out of the ignition. “Your turncoat friend get busted for dipping into the bulk candy bins or something? Mr. Bradley’s a real hardass about that stuff, but he’s not unreasonable if you just talk to him.”</p>
<p>He’s already got his door open before Mike can even start to say, “No, wait -”</p>
<p>By the time the Party get their act together to go after him, Mike leaning on Dustin’s shoulder as a crutch, Steve’s already crunching over the broken glass from the sliding doors. “Everybody all right? What’s going on?”</p>
<p>The look the manager fixes on him is openly suspicious. But for some reason, Mike thinks, he also seems…kind of relieved. “Harrington. Of course. Should’ve known. Did you and your little friends set this up? Because as practical jokes go, it’s not very funny.” He gestures, open-handed, at the sidewalk. “<em>Some</em>body’s going to have to pay for these doors.”</p>
<p>“What?” Steve gives his head a confused shake. “No way, I wouldn’t – we were just passing by and wondered what all the fuss was about.” He looks down at the sparkling sidewalk. “What happened to your doors?”</p>
<p>If anything, the manager’s suspicious frown just gets deeper. “That little girl slammed them shut. In my <em>face</em>. After robbing the place.”</p>
<p>“A little girl slammed a pair of <em>sliding</em> doors so hard they shattered,” Steve says, and the manager falters for a moment.</p>
<p>He rallies impressively, though. “That was no ordinary little girl.” He looks around like he’s checking to see if anyone else is listening, and lowers his voice before he says, “She didn’t lay a finger on them. Or the <em>other</em> things she threw at me.”</p>
<p>Steve frowns at him. But the murmur that goes through the rest of the little crowd sounds like agreement.</p>
<p>“El,” Mike mutters into Dustin’s ear, and Dustin nods.</p>
<p>“Are you sure you saw what you think you saw?” Dustin tries, gamely, and the adults all turn to look at him with varying degrees of surprise, bafflement, and annoyance. “I mean. I hear the sunspots have been really acting up this year…?”</p>
<p>He shrugs, before shooting a furious, help-me look over at Mike.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Mike agrees, trying to look innocent. “Sunspots.”</p>
<p>Steve turns all the way around to give them both the most amazed, disbelieving look Mike’s ever seen on his smug, stupid face. Mike glares back and silently wills him not to mess this up.</p>
<p>“<em>Sunspots</em>,” the manager insists, with a wave of his arm, “didn’t smash my front doors.”</p>
<p>“It’s the Russians,” a balding man in a windbreaker interjects. “You know, they’ve got all these secret experimental weapons -”</p>
<p>“What?” Steve asks, with a pointed look at Mike, before wrinkling up his nose like he’s never heard anything so ridiculous in his whole life and turning back to the adults. “In <em>Hawkins?</em> Come on. The Russians are sending twelve-year-old spies to Nowhere, Indiana to raid grocery stores for Eggo waffles now?”</p>
<p>The balding man frowns a little at that, like he’d never considered the possibility that what he’s saying is ridiculous.</p>
<p>But the manager is getting more suspicious by the second. “How do you explain the doors, then? And the shopping cart? And -”</p>
<p>“A big truck going by outside? Wind and bad timing?” Steve shrugs. “Sometimes weird shit happens. Like my mom says, doesn’t mean there isn’t a rational explanation for it.”</p>
<p>“Sometimes that rational explanation is superpowers,” Dustin says, under his breath, and Mike has to stuff down a laugh.</p>
<p>And that’s when they hear the sirens.</p>
<p>“You called the police?” Lucas asks, worried. Mike thinks he can guess why – even if Lucas doesn’t care if El gets caught for her own sake, the chief had specifically told them not to go out looking for Will. If he finds El, and she talks – which she’s got no reason not to do now - then the Party are in deep shit.</p>
<p>“I was <em>robbed</em>,” the manager protests.</p>
<p>Steve rolls his eyes, with a disbelieving noise. “You weren’t <em>robbed</em>. A kid shoplifted some Eggos, and something busted your door.”</p>
<p>“The kid busted the door,” the manager says, but he sounds less sure about it than he had a few minutes ago.</p>
<p>“Oh, yeah. I forgot. With her <em>mind</em>. Come on, that’s crazy.”</p>
<p>“We all saw it,” the dark-haired clerk says, but it sounds more like a question than a statement of fact. There are a few nodded heads from the customers, too, but they slow to a stop as Steve looks around at them all, any certainty bleeding away.</p>
<p>“What did you all actually <em>see</em>, anyway?” Steve plants his hands on his hips and nods as a handful of mumbles die away into silence. “The doors slamming. Yeah. Thought so. All that proves is that the doors broke.”</p>
<p>“But -” the manager starts, stubbornly, and Steve gives him a despairing look. There’s something, some barely-heard sound or something in the way the air shifts, that makes Mike think, suddenly and randomly, of the way Lucas had stared El down outside Will’s house. Of the way the air between them had hummed before she’d blurted out the truth about the Demogorgon.</p>
<p>“Seriously, Mr. Bradley. You didn’t see a kid with <em>psychic powers</em>. You can’t even <em>see</em> psychic powers. You saw a regular, ordinary kid. The doors are weird, yeah, but it’s a coincidence. And if you try to tell the police you got robbed by a twelve-year-old psychic Russian spy, they’re just going to have a good laugh at you back at the station.” Steve blinks, and gives a short sniff, like his nose is starting to run, before offering, “Hey, and – how about I pay for the Eggos. Insurance should cover the door, right?”</p>
<p>“I…” The manager looks confused, now, and a little upset about it, like he’d been trying hard to remember something important and had it slip away from him. Finally, though, he lets out a resigned sigh. “I guess you’re right. But I was so <em>sure</em>…”</p>
<p>“Happens to the best of us,” Steve says, clapping him on the shoulder with another sniffle. “Sometimes you just need an outside perspective. Hey, when you find out how many boxes of Eggos that kid took, put them on my mom’s account, will you? I gotta get these shitheads back.”</p>
<p>“…sure,” the manager repeats, faintly, and the weird tension in the air dissolves. He turns on his heel without another word, and walks back into the store. The dark-haired clerk glances back at them in confusion, once, and then follows him.</p>
<p>“C’mon,” Lucas says, already starting for Steve’s car as a police car turns down the street. “Let’s get out of here.”</p>
<p>They make it back to the BMW before the police car pulls up in front of the Big Buy, though not with a lot of time to spare. Mike’s ankle is still throbbing every time he puts weight on it, but at least he <em>can</em> put weight on it now. It’s still better than it was at Will’s house.</p>
<p>“You owe me bigtime, Wheeler,” Steve says, with another hard sniff, as he drops into the driver’s seat. “I covered for your little girlfriend. Now who wants to tell me what the hell’s going on?”</p>
<p>Mike looks him in the face, trying to decide what he wants to tell Steve. And then realises Steve’s got a more pressing problem. “Your nose is bleeding.”</p>
<p>“What?” Steve presses two fingers to his upper lip, looks at the smear of red that came off on them, and groans, tilting his head back. “Shit! Glove box – there’s tissues in there. I can<em>not</em> get blood on this upholstery.”</p>
<p>For a moment, the scene at the Big Buy is forgotten as Mike rummages through the glove compartment and comes up with a handful of crumpled tissues. Steve presses the whole handful against his nose, and sits there glowering and unhappy as red slowly bleeds through the white.</p>
<p>“Okay,” he says, his voice slightly muffled by the hand holding the tissues in place. “Now. Why did those people think your friend was psychic?”</p>
<p>“’Cause she is,” Dustin says, and Mike and Lucas both turn to hiss at him.</p>
<p>“<em>Dustin!</em>”</p>
<p>“Guys, it’s okay!” Dustin waves one hand in Steve’s direction, way too unconcerned. “Steve’s not gonna tell.”</p>
<p>“I’m not?” Steve looks into the teeth of two murderous glares, and swallows. “I mean, I’m <em>not</em>, but – that’s a lotta faith to put in a guy you barely know, Henderson.”</p>
<p>Dustin shrugs. “Well, if people find out about El, they’ll find out about you too, right? No way you want that.”</p>
<p>He looks into three equally confused stares, and shrugs. “Guys. Think about it. Mike, we’ve been complaining about how different your sister is since she started hanging out with Steve, right? And we all just saw him do a Jedi mind-trick on those people.”</p>
<p>“<em>What</em>?” Steve does that wrinkled-nose-that’s-ridiculous thing again. “Henderson, that’s crazy talk.”</p>
<p>“Dude. You were all ‘these are not the droids you’re looking for’, and that guy totally gave up on charging El with theft and breaking and entering, even though she entered, she thieved, and she most definitely broke.” Dustin ticks off the charges on his fingers, before gesturing towards Steve’s face. “And now your nose is bleeding. And what happens every time El uses her powers?” he asks, turning back to Mike and Lucas.</p>
<p>“She gets a nosebleed,” Lucas says, slowly, looking up at Steve like he’s seeing him for the first time.</p>
<p>Steve looks back and forth between the three Party members like he’s looking for an ally. He doesn’t find one.</p>
<p>“Wheeler,” he says, finally. “Can you please tell your friends that they’ve been reading too many comic books?”</p>
<p>“It’s okay!” Dustin says. “Your secret’s safe with us.” He raises three fingers. “Scout’s honour.”</p>
<p>“You’re not a <em>scout</em>,” Lucas says.</p>
<p>“What, so I can’t have scout’s honour?”</p>
<p>“Exactly? That’s exactly how that works?”</p>
<p>Mike tunes out their bickering to study Steve’s face. It’s hard to tell with the handful of tissue in the way, but – he doesn’t see anything but genuine confusion there. Confusion, and something – just a tiny seed, but a seed that’s sprouting fast, of doubt.</p>
<p>“Did you…you didn’t <em>know</em>?” he asks, and Steve spins to look at him so fast he bangs his knee on the underside of the steering column.</p>
<p>“<em>Ow</em> – shit, goddammit – didn’t know <em>what</em>? That I have <em>psychic powers</em>? That’s a trick question, Wheeler. I <em>don’t</em>.” There’s anger building under his carefully-controlled cool as he says, “You nerds probably haven’t ever experienced this, but sometimes, when people like you, they listen to what you have to say.”</p>
<p>“Sure,” Dustin says, with a shrug. “<em>And</em> when you use the Force to mess with their heads.”</p>
<p>“I do <em>not -</em>” Steve bites off his own sentence to pinch the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. He pulls the pile of tissues away from his face, and somehow Mike’s not surprised to see that the blood that had been dripping from his nose has dried up. “You know what? Get out of my car.”</p>
<p>“Steve,” Dustin says, with exaggerated patience.</p>
<p>“Henderson,” Steve says back, in a mockery of Dustin’s tone. “<em>Out</em>. You and Sinclair both. How’s the ankle doing, Wheeler?”</p>
<p>“Better,” Mike says, reluctantly.</p>
<p>“Great. You can walk too.”</p>
<p>“We’re not going to tell anyone!” Lucas protests. “We just need a little help. Our friend Will is missing, and -”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry, what part of <em>get out of my car</em> are you having trouble understanding?” Steve locks eyes with Dustin, who scowls back at him. “I wish I <em>could</em> make people do shit just by saying the word. That way, you’d be on the sidewalk already, and we wouldn’t be having this pointless, <em>stupid</em> conversation.”</p>
<p>“Well, obviously you can’t be doing it just every time you tell somebody to do something, otherwise everybody would’ve noticed by now -”</p>
<p>“Henderson, get <em>out</em> of my car <em>right now </em>or I’m going out there and telling the police everything you just told me about your little psychic friend!”</p>
<p>Dustin looks taken aback by Steve’s outburst, but not genuinely scared by the threat. But Mike looks at the set of Steve’s jaw and the heavy breaths that are flaring his nostrils, and knows. What Dustin’s saying is really starting to get to him. Under the veneer of anger, Steve’s scared as hell.</p>
<p>And Mike knows all too well that scared people do unpredictable, stupid things.</p>
<p>“Fine!” he says, and Dustin looks at him like he’s just betrayed them all. Mike shakes his head, and deliberately doesn’t look Dustin in the eye. “Fine, okay, we’ll go. Thanks for the lift into town.”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Lucas says, grabbing Dustin by the arm and hauling him out the rear door behind him. Dustin squawks about it, but he doesn’t put up much of a resistance.</p>
<p>Steve glances over at Mike, taking a deep breath, and a little of his anger boils away. “Are you – <em>actually</em> okay to walk? Because – you don’t have to -”</p>
<p>“No,” Mike says. “I’ll be fine. I feel way better already.” Well, he doesn’t feel <em>way</em> better, but he’ll be better enough to get a safe distance from the rumbling, smoking volcano that is Steve Harrington right now.</p>
<p>Steve doesn’t break eye contact for an uncomfortable moment. Then he says, “Fine,” and turns to stare straight out the windshield.</p>
<p>Mike isn’t sure if he should say something more as he climbs out the passenger door, but in the end, he just shuts the door behind him and watches as Steve peels away from the curb.</p>
<p>Dustin’s still squawking. “Guys! Great job. I was calling his bluff -”</p>
<p>“He wasn’t bluffing,” Lucas says, and Dustin turns on him.</p>
<p>“Oh, yeah. And <em>you</em>. Don’t think I didn’t notice what <em>you</em> did back at Will’s place.”</p>
<p>Lucas makes a face that’s almost the twin of Steve’s wrinkled-nose-that’s-ridiculous look, though Mike knows, if he ever told either of them that, they wouldn’t believe him. “What?”</p>
<p>“Making El tell the truth?” Dustin shrugs both shoulders, with a wide-eyed stare at Lucas. “No way she was <em>ever</em> giving up that little nugget of information about where the Demogorgon came from willingly. Until you forced it out of her.”</p>
<p>“I <em>guilted</em> it out of her,” Lucas says, narrowing his eyes at Dustin.</p>
<p>“Nosebleed!” Dustin shouts, loud enough that the deputy standing over by the Big Buy doors interviewing the manager turns to look in their direction. Dustin lowers his voice, but not the intensity level. “Seriously, does <em>everybody</em> have psychic powers but me? Mike? Have you been holding out on me?”</p>
<p>Mike shakes his head.</p>
<p>“Dustin,” he says, “don’t you think – wouldn’t we <em>know</em> if we had psychic powers?”</p>
<p>“Maybe you do. Maybe you do, and you just never told me. Maybe this entire <em>town</em> has psychic powers, and you’ve all just been hiding it from me and my mom since we moved here. Maybe you and Lucas and Will have all been lying to me since fourth grade, and I’ve just been too stupid to notice!”</p>
<p>“No way,” Lucas says.</p>
<p>Dustin just huffs out a disbelieving snort.</p>
<p>“Dustin. Lucas is right. We’re your Party. We’re your <em>best friends</em>. No way we’d keep that kind of a secret from you,” Mike says, feeling helpless. There’s no good way to prove what Dustin’s saying isn’t true. Especially since – he kind of has a point. When Lucas had made El admit the truth, there <em>had </em>been that weird tension… “Lucas?”</p>
<p>Lucas looks back and forth between the two of them, about as helplessly as Mike feels.</p>
<p>“Look,” he says. “I’m not…going to say there wasn’t <em>anything</em> weird about how El admitted that. But – I haven’t been hiding anything. From <em>any</em> of you guys. I would never.”</p>
<p>Dustin still doesn’t look convinced. If anything, he just seems kind of…hurt.</p>
<p>“All right,” he says, although his heart’s clearly not in it. “Let’s just go home. School’s gotta be over already anyway.”</p>
<p>Lucas nods, with a glance over at Mike. “Are you gonna be okay to walk?”</p>
<p>“Yeah. I’ll be fine.” Mike looks at his friends. “Where are your bikes?”</p>
<p>“<em>Shit!</em>” Dustin swears. “Mike! You let Steve drive off with them both in his trunk!”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Yeah, I may be sort of speedrunning Steve's S2 arc. What of it.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Could you…pick the winning lottery numbers?”</p>
<p>Barb gives Nancy a flat look. “Could <em>you</em> pick the winning lottery numbers?” She shakes her head, turning back to her chemistry textbook. “It’s not like that. At least, it’s never <em>been</em> like that. More like…when you see something that’s been balanced really badly, and you realise it’s going to fall over. Maybe not right now while you’re watching, maybe not even today at all, maybe not for a while…but it’s going over. Unless somebody notices and props it up.”</p>
<p>She flips a few more pages before saying, to her textbook, “I never really thought it was anything other than normal.”</p>
<p>“Me neither,” Nancy says. She’s got her books open on the floor all around her, but she isn’t even looking at them. She doesn’t take her eyes off Barb, who’s lying on her stomach across her bed. “But – Jonathan’s right. No way anybody could’ve seen that monster coming.”</p>
<p>Barb, for her part, studiously pretends like she doesn’t notice Nancy’s staring. “Yeah. Wonder how he figured it out. Hey, what did you get for question 2c?”</p>
<p>Nancy looks down at the homework she’d pretty much forgotten existed. Her notepaper looks back at her, completely blank.</p>
<p>“I haven’t done that one yet,” she says. She hasn’t done any of them yet. There’s something absurd about sitting here in Barb’s room trying to do homework like everything’s normal when a kid is dead and her best friend is psychic and there’s a monster rampaging through her town.</p>
<p>“Okay, well, let me know when you do? I think I did all the work right, but this is <em>definitely</em> not the right answer.”</p>
<p>“We shouldn’t be here,” Nancy says, firmly, making up her mind. Barb looks up, and then shakes her head.</p>
<p>“Oh no. No, Nancy, I know that look. Whatever you’re planning -”</p>
<p>Nancy snaps her chemistry book shut with all her notes inside it. “You’re the only one who can see that <em>thing</em> coming. It got Jonathan’s brother, it nearly got you – it’s going after people. What makes us think it’ll take a break just because we have chemistry homework?”</p>
<p>Barb gives Nancy a long look.</p>
<p>“Nancy,” she says, with a little disbelieving half-smile, “you are <em>not</em> about to ask me to go monster hunting with you. <em>Please</em> tell me you’re not.”</p>
<p>Nancy shrugs. “You’re the one who can see the future. You already know what I’m going to ask.”</p>
<p>Barb lets out a long, exasperated sigh, and rolls over to flop on her back, spread-eagled, across her bed, staring at the ceiling.</p>
<p>“You’re not going to let this go until it’s dead, are you,” she says, flatly, after a long moment of silence.</p>
<p>Nancy shrugs again, even though she knows Barb isn’t looking at her. “It almost killed my best friend.”</p>
<p>Barb doesn’t say anything for so long that Nancy wonders, just a little, if she’s actually falling asleep up there.</p>
<p>“All right,” she says, finally. “But I am <em>not</em> going anywhere near that thing again without a weapon.”</p>
<p>Nancy couldn’t agree with that sentiment more.</p>
<p>Barb’s basement, though, unfortunately does not yield a great selection of potential weaponry. Neither does her garage. Nancy gives an old tennis racket a halfhearted swing, tossing it aside with a sigh. “This isn’t going to work.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” Barb says, raising one of her dad’s golf clubs over her shoulder. “<em>This</em> might. Fore!”</p>
<p>Nancy ducks as Barb’s overexuberant swing yanks the club right out of her hands and sends it flying across the garage. “Or…it might not.”</p>
<p>“Or it might not.” Barb crosses the garage to pick the club back up. She weighs it in one hand, smacking it into the palm of the other hand thoughtfully. “No, you’re right. If we’re going to have a real chance against this thing, we’re going to need some serious firepower. And we’re not gonna find that here.”</p>
<p>“Or at my place,” Nancy sighs. She’s not sure if that’s a – <em>prediction</em>, but with that monster, she’s not going to take any chances. “Guess we’re going shopping.”</p>
<p>Barb drives them downtown. The plan is to hit the sporting goods store, specifically the hunting season sales, and see what they can find. What speaks to Barb. What seems like it might, at some unspecified point in the future, put a permanent hole in their monster.</p>
<p>“We should see – I mean, <em>you</em> should see if you can find out where it’s going to strike next,” Nancy says, looking out the window as the rows of houses roll past. “So we can get there first. Maybe even set a trap.”</p>
<p>Barb shakes her head, not taking her eyes off the road. “I don’t know if I can. I mean, I’ve never tried to force it.”</p>
<p>“What do you mean? Does it – not work if you think about it too much, or…?”</p>
<p>Barb uncurls the fingers of both hands from the steering wheel, leaving only the heels pressed against the wheel and her fingers all splayed. “I don’t know! I don’t know. It’s always just been – something happens and sometimes I get an idea of how it’s going to turn out.” She puts her head to one side, before turning a thoughtful look in Nancy’s direction. “It happens way more with people I know. Remember? I knew you were going to get sick at that sleepaway camp, I knew Cole was going to ask Ally to the homecoming dance last year…”</p>
<p>That’s interesting. Nancy tries to decide if it’s also useful. “So…if one of us was in danger, you’d be more likely to see it?”</p>
<p>Barb shrugs, with a roll of her eyes. “You know as much about it as I do.” She pauses, and then says, “Nancy?”</p>
<p>“Yeah?”</p>
<p>“I know you, and I know what you’re thinking. <em>Don’t</em> go getting any ideas. I don’t want this thing to kill my best friend, either.”</p>
<p>Nancy bites her bottom lip. “I wasn’t going to -”</p>
<p>“Yes, you were.”</p>
<p>“All right, yes, I was.” Nancy slumps back in her seat, faking a pout. She can’t hold it for long, though, before she catches Barb’s eye and they both break into giggles.</p>
<p>Neither one of them has ever been hunting before, and based on the looks they get from the man behind the counter, that much is obvious. Nancy’s not even sure how you use half this stuff, or what it <em>does</em>, and there’s no way anybody’s going to sell them actual firearms. But they do leave with a bear trap, several cans of mace, and an acetylene torch that Barb had picked up and declared she wanted, whether it’d be any good against the monster or not.</p>
<p>“I’ve always wanted a flamethrower,” she admits to Nancy, as she slams the trunk on their arsenal.</p>
<p>“That’s not exactly a flamethrower.”</p>
<p>“Not <em>yet</em>. But I’m sure we can figure something out.” Her smile is brilliant. “What else are all these chemistry classes good for?”</p>
<p>The sun’s just starting to set when Barb pulls up to the curb by Nancy’s house to drop her off. But hers isn’t the only car parked there. Nancy lets out a long, heartfelt groan at the sight of the BMW and slouches down in her seat. “Keep driving, maybe he hasn’t seen me yet.”</p>
<p>“Seriously?” Barb glances over at the passenger seat. “Look, Nancy, not that I don’t appreciate this, but you’re going to have to talk to him sooner or later.” A knowing smile crosses her face. “Even if it’s just to tell him you’re ‘<em>not</em> dating’.”</p>
<p>Nancy groans, and reaches over to swat Barb in the arm, casting a worried look out the window.</p>
<p>She groans again when she sees the Beemer’s door swing open, but she does reluctantly straighten up in her seat. Barb has a point. And just because the last two times she’s tried to talk to Steve have ended in disaster, doesn’t mean this one will too.</p>
<p>Right?</p>
<p>Steve’s not smiling as he makes his way over to Barb’s little car, though, and Nancy kind of wants to shrink back down in her seat again and hide until he goes away. He looks – upset.</p>
<p>Barb, the traitor, opens her own door and steps out, leaning one elbow against the open door. The November air flowing into the car is cold. Nancy wishes she’d brought a jacket. “Steve. I’m guessing you want to talk to Nancy?”</p>
<p>“Yeah.” Steve sticks his hands in the pockets of his jeans and lets out a long breath before he says, “And – and you, too. I’m - I’m sorry I didn’t take you seriously, the other night. And – today. I shouldn’t have just brushed you off like that.”</p>
<p>Barb’s quiet for a moment. And then, she says, “Nancy? Come out here and face your boyfriend.”</p>
<p>Nancy rolls her eyes. But she swings open the car door and pushes herself out.</p>
<p>She hugs herself against the chill in the air, waiting for Steve to speak first. He takes his sweet time about it, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and looking all around him before he finally says, “Look, I’ve had – a weird afternoon.”</p>
<p>“Join the club,” Barb mutters.</p>
<p>“Steve -” Nancy starts, and Steve holds a hand up, palm out.</p>
<p>“Just – Nancy, just hear me out, okay?” He crosses his arms over his chest, and then uncrosses them again so he can stuff his hands into his jacket pockets instead. Nancy wonders how long he’s been waiting outside her house. How long he’s been planning this conversation in his head. “Look, I still don’t know if I’m convinced about this <em>monster</em> thing, but – I went by Byers’ place. In case – it was stupid. I wanted to see that picture, okay? I wanted to see what convinced you.” He huffs out a rueful laugh. “Realised on the way up the drive that today might not be the best day for it.”</p>
<p>“Understatement of the year,” Barb says, and Steve gives her a sharp look.</p>
<p>“And? Did you see it?” Nancy asks, before either of the other two can pick another fight.</p>
<p>Steve shakes his head. “No. Byers wasn’t home. But -” He pauses, with a distrustful glance at Barb, and then says to Nancy, “Look, can we go inside or something? Do you want to come sit in my car? It’s freezing out here.”</p>
<p>“Great idea,” Nancy says. “Barb? Come inside with us.” She’s aware that it’s petty. She’s also aware that she doesn’t want to let Steve off the hook that easily.</p>
<p>Steve presses his lips hard together, but he doesn’t fight her on it.</p>
<p>“Nancy?” Nancy’s mom calls, as Nancy opens the front door. A second later, she’s in the hall, all smiles. “There you are. I was just starting to wonder. And Barbara! Good to see you.” Her smile goes a little fixed when her eyes settle on Steve. “I…don’t think I’ve met your other friend…?”</p>
<p>Nancy bites her tongue. “Mom, this is Steve. Barb’s – tutoring him. In chemistry.”</p>
<p>Steve raises a hand in greeting, shooting Nancy’s mom a smile that falls just shy of his usual effortless charm. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Wheeler.”</p>
<p>“Oh, so <em>you’re</em> Steve.” Nancy’s mom gives Nancy a pointed look, but when none of the three of them explain any further, she just smiles again. “Nice – to meet you too. <em>Steve</em>. And you’re all studying here?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Nancy says, firmly, starting for the stairs. “We’ll be in my room.” She doesn’t wait to give her mother a chance to object, just starts up the stairs without looking back to check if the other two are still following her.</p>
<p>“Oh – okay,” her mother calls up after her, in a voice that clearly says that it is <em>not</em> okay, and Nancy is in for an agonising conversation as soon as Barb and Steve leave. “Nancy, leave the door open!”</p>
<p>Nancy rolls her eyes, and doesn’t answer.</p>
<p>She doesn’t leave the door open, either, slamming it behind her as soon as the other two are inside. “So what was so important that we couldn’t talk about it out in the open?” Nancy demands, and Steve looks at her like a deer caught in headlights.</p>
<p>“I – I didn’t know who else to talk to,” he admits. “Tommy and Carol would’ve just laughed. But I remembered how you were with Barbara and the monster thing, and I thought – I don’t know, maybe…?”</p>
<p>Barb catches Nancy’s eye over Steve’s shoulder and raises both her eyebrows, before dropping heavily onto Nancy’s bed, tucking one leg up under her.</p>
<p>“Steve,” Nancy says, feeling like she’s just had a shot of adrenaline in the arm. “Did you <em>see</em> it?”</p>
<p>“What? No.” Which sort of bursts Nancy’s bubble.</p>
<p>“Okay,” Barb says, rummaging in her bag and pulling out her chemistry textbook. It’s good thinking. If Nancy’s mom tries to burst in, like she likes to do, she’ll see them studying. “So what’s the big mysterious deal?”</p>
<p>Steve paces back and forth across Nancy’s carpet, between her desk and the end of her bed, three times before he stops and looks Nancy dead in the eye. What he says next, he says as seriously as if he’s asking her to – to marry him, or say one last thing to him before he goes off to war. “Nancy, did you even want to go out with me before I asked you?”</p>
<p>“What?” Nancy can’t totally choke back a disbelieving half-laugh. “Really? You’re – <em>you’re</em> worried that I don’t really like you.”</p>
<p>Steve’s solemn expression doesn’t change. “Nancy…answer the question.” He looks frightened for a moment, for some reason, and hastily adds, “Please. If you want to.”</p>
<p>“Are you kidding? You’re <em>Steve Harrington</em>. Who <em>doesn’t</em> want to go out with you?”</p>
<p>Steve takes two steps back, and leans heavily against the back of Nancy’s deskchair. He does not look reassured. If anything, he seems more upset than he had when he’d come over to Barb’s car. “You, according to Carol and Nicole and everybody else at school.”</p>
<p>A prickle of annoyance sweeps through Nancy, followed by a quiet flicker of unease. She can’t believe that Steve got her hopes up, that he might be able to tell her something more about the monster or what’s going on in her town, but all he wants to talk about is <em>dating</em>.</p>
<p>But – he seems really upset.</p>
<p>“Are we breaking up?” she asks, quietly.</p>
<p>Steve snorts, with a smile that is absolutely not amused. “Were we ever really dating?”</p>
<p>“<em>O</em>-kay,” Barb says, flipping open her chemistry textbook. “Hey, Nancy, do you have a Walkman? Or a pair of earplugs?”</p>
<p>Nancy doesn’t. She also doesn’t dare take her eyes off Steve’s face. The pit of her stomach is sinking fast. “Why – why is this coming up now?”</p>
<p>“Really don’t want to be here for this conversation,” Barb says, to no one in particular.</p>
<p>“You can get out on the roof from the window and get down, if Nancy doesn’t want her mom to see you leaving us alone up here,” Steve says, casually, with a glance in her direction.</p>
<p>Barb fixes Nancy with a disbelieving stare. “Nancy? Do I want to know how he knows that?”</p>
<p>“Nothing <em>happened</em>,” Nancy insists. “We studied. Once. And then he came to apologise after the party.”</p>
<p>Barb looks like she’s going to say something more, but Steve interrupts her with a snap of his fingers. He wags his pointed finger through the air in Nancy’s direction, looking suddenly hopeful. “That’s right! That’s right, I did – and you wouldn’t listen when I tried to tell you it must’ve been an animal or something. You wouldn’t <em>listen</em>.”</p>
<p>“No,” Nancy says. “I told you. We have proof. Steve, <em>what</em> is going <em>on</em>?”</p>
<p>Steve gives her a despairing look.</p>
<p>“This is going to sound nuts,” he says. “But – your brother and his friends are convinced I’m some kind of – that I have -” He waves an arm helplessly through the air, like he’s trying to capture something intangible, like he’s trying to show off how much he <em>knows</em> what this sounds like. “<em>Superpowers</em>.”</p>
<p>Nancy looks over at Barb, and sees her own wide-eyed surprise mirrored on Barb’s face.</p>
<p>Steve looks back and forth between them, and obviously misinterprets it. “You’re right. You’re right, that sounds crazy -”</p>
<p>“Not <em>that</em> crazy,” Barb says, and Steve looks at her like she’s just said the sky is green.</p>
<p>There are a whole lot of pressing, important questions that Steve’s admission raises. But there’s one thing Nancy absolutely has to know the answer to before this conversation can go any farther. “Why were you hanging around with my kid brother?”</p>
<p>“It – I just ran into them by accident, he’d busted his ankle, he needed a ride – it’s not important, okay?”</p>
<p>“What kind of superpowers?” Barb asks. Nancy notices that she seems to have completely forgotten about the chemistry book laid out on the bed in front of her, her eyes fixed on Steve’s face.</p>
<p>Steve shakes his head, with a half-shrug. “Some kind of – I talked Mr. Bradley out of freaking out about some stupid stunt one of their friends pulled, and then they all got convinced I couldn’t have done it unless I messed with his head somehow. <em>Made</em> him change his mind just by telling him to.”</p>
<p>He pushes himself up from Nancy’s desk and starts to pace again, waving his hands as he talks, his voice getting faster and louder the longer he goes on. “And of course I blew them off, because that’s ridiculous, except – there <em>was</em> something weird about it. He was so convinced about what he saw, and then – I only pushed a <em>little</em>, and he completely changed his mind. And then of course I couldn’t stop thinking about it, like how <em>you</em> never gave me the time of day until I wore you down, and how you never want to tell anybody we’re dating, and – and Miss Click, last year, after I asked if she’d reconsider giving me a D+ and she bumped me all the way up to an A, and – my parents. They never let me get a word in edgewise in my own defense, or explain why they should let me do anything, it’s always just ‘don’t talk back, young man’, and -”</p>
<p>“Does anyone want – oh, you’re busy.”</p>
<p>Nancy whirls around, to see her mother opening her bedroom door with one hand, a plateful of cookies in the other and a big, fake smile on her face. “<em>Mom!</em>”</p>
<p>“Nancy,” her mom says, like Nancy’s the one being unreasonable. “I thought I told you to leave this door open?”</p>
<p>“Thank you. For the cookies.” Nancy says shortly, reaching out to take the plate. “Will you please leave us <em>alone</em>?”</p>
<p>“Nancy -” her mother says, sharply, and Nancy smiles and shuts the door on her. And locks it.</p>
<p>It’s too late, though. Steve’s already started second-guessing himself. He’s got his shoulders hunched forwards, like he’d like to turtle his head down between them and disappear. “Anyway. You’re right. It’s – crazy. This is all crazy. I shouldn’t even have said anything.”</p>
<p>“Steve,” Nancy says, aiming for reassuring and finding herself falling closer to exasperation.</p>
<p>“No, no, it’s – believe me, I can hear what it sounds like when I say it out loud.” Steve brushes past her to the door, not looking her in the face. “I’ll – see you at school tomorrow, then.”</p>
<p>“I told you, Nancy,” Barb says, a little overloud, and Steve stops with his hand on the doorknob. “I <em>told</em> you. People act different around him.” She’s looking at Steve like she’s never seen him before, like he’d just stepped out of thin air and handed her two tickets to Disneyland, and she’s trying to figure out if they’re real and how he got into her house. “I <em>told </em>Steve he’d find out how real his friendships are. Nancy, Nancy, you know what this means?”</p>
<p>It <em>means</em> that Nancy wasn’t the one who decided she should sleep with Steve Harrington. And she’d come so close to it, too. All of a sudden, she thinks she might throw up.</p>
<p>Steve’s looking pretty queasy himself, and there’s dawning horror in the look he turns on Nancy. She wonders if he’s thinking the same thing she is. A little part of her hopes he is. Hopes he’s as horrified and disgusted by the thought as she is. At least then she’d know he hadn’t <em>meant</em> to do it.</p>
<p>That he won’t try it on her again.</p>
<p>Barb’s the only one who doesn’t seem to have put it together. She’s still looking at Steve with something close to awe.</p>
<p>“I’m not the only one,” she says.</p>
<p>Steve looks at her the way Nancy thinks he might look at a rabid dog advancing on him with all its teeth bared.</p>
<p>“You’re shitting me,” he says. And then, “No, no, no way. This cannot possibly be real. No way, you were just, just messing with me, no way you can <em>actually</em> know the future -”</p>
<p>“Oh, trust me, there’s a black eye in yours and it’s coming up fast,” Barb interrupts him, turning to Nancy with growing excitement. “<em>Nancy</em>. If <em>Steve</em> has powers too – there could be more. <em>Anybody</em> could -”</p>
<p>Steve’s shaking his head, now, short fast side-to-side shakes as he presses his back flat against the door. “No way. No <em>way!</em> You were supposed to tell me I was imagining things, not -” He breaks off. “This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening!”</p>
<p>“Jonathan,” Barb says, with a little gasp of understanding. “That’s got to be how he knew about me -”</p>
<p>“People don’t have <em>psychic powers!</em> This is <em>crazy!</em>”</p>
<p>“Would both of you <em>please</em> shut up?” Nancy snaps, and both Steve and Barb fall into a guilty silence.</p>
<p>Nancy presses two fingers to either temple and rubs, hard, trying to ease away the headache that’s starting to settle behind her eyes as much as she’s trying to think of what to do next.</p>
<p>There’s one of their dilemmas that she has an idea of how to deal with, at least. “Barb - I think you’re right about Jonathan. At the very least, he noticed something or knows something we didn’t. Maybe – maybe there’s something more he didn’t tell us.” A sudden burst of inspiration strikes her, and she adds, “Maybe he could help you figure out how to see where the monster’s going to be.”</p>
<p>Barb’s got a look like a kid on Christmas Eve. “I’ve <em>got</em> to talk to him.”</p>
<p>“Wait, wait. Jonathan Byers? <em>That’s</em> your superpowers expert?” Steve raises his arms to lace the fingers of both hands behind his head, turning in a slow circle on the spot. When he stops, letting his arms swing loose at his sides, it’s to fix Nancy with a stare like he’s trying to read something written on the inside of her skull. “You’ve been spending…a lot of time hanging out with that guy lately, huh.”</p>
<p>Nancy shrugs, biting her bottom lip. <em>This</em> is the dilemma that she <em>doesn’t</em> know how to deal with. She’d been hoping to put it off a little while longer. “He’s - not so bad, actually, once you get to know him a little. I mean, <em>yes</em>, he’s pretentious and weird, but he’s also – pretty funny, and -”</p>
<p>Steve shakes his head, cutting her off. That piercing stare softens, a little, but Nancy doesn’t like what replaces it any better.</p>
<p>He almost sounds resigned when he says, “I <em>did</em> do this to you. Didn’t I.”</p>
<p>“Steve – I don’t know what you’re -”</p>
<p>“Yes you do. Don’t act – you don’t have to act like you don’t.” Steve glances over at Barb, briefly, before turning back to Nancy with a small, rueful smile that looks strange and out of place on his face and the tiniest shake of his head. “I shouldn’t be here. Your mom’ll flip about you having a boy in your room.”</p>
<p>“<em>Steve</em>,” Nancy says, stepping in his way as he reaches for the door. “Come on. Don’t be an idiot -”</p>
<p>Steve looks her dead in the eye. “Nancy, do you love me?”</p>
<p>Nancy sputters for words for a second. “<em>Love</em> – I’ve barely <em>known</em> you for a – a week or two, isn’t it a little early to -”</p>
<p>Steve actually looks relieved. “Good. That’s good.” There’s something, something in the way he looks at her, something in his voice, and if Nancy hadn’t believed he could make people do things just by telling them to before, she does when he says, “Then get out of my way.”</p>
<p>Nancy steps aside before she has a chance to really think about it. By the time she’s managed to gather up her thoughts, the door’s standing open and Steve’s already gone.</p>
<p>Barb’s the one to break the silence. “Nancy, I’m sorry -”</p>
<p>Nancy gives herself a little shake, all over. Her skin is crawling. “Don’t be. It’s fine.” She forces herself not to look back down the hallway after Steve, not to listen as he wishes her surprised-sounding mother a good night. “Come on. Let’s focus. We’ve got a monster to kill.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“So…”</p>
<p>Joyce leans back in her patio chair. “So.” She takes a last drag on her cigarette before stubbing it out against the metal arm of the chair, watching Hopper’s turned back. He hasn’t moved a muscle for what’s got to be a full minute, leaning against one of the posts holding up the porch roof and staring out at her yard. She wonders if the cigarette he’s holding will have to burn down to his fingers before he remembers it’s there.</p>
<p>His voice is deliberately casual, but Joyce can hear the tension in it. “Will read minds too?”</p>
<p>“No,” Joyce says, turning her attention to her knees. Jonathan had declined to join them on the porch, and she’s a little bit grateful for that. “No, Will – the lights. Anything electric, really. Remember, I told you about the phone?”</p>
<p>Hopper nods, once. He still doesn’t turn to face her.</p>
<p>“When he was just little, he – his dad called, once, on Will’s birthday, to say he wasn’t going to make it. And – and Will got upset, and then we lost the connection. And Lonnie called back later from a pay phone to say his phone was a smoking heap of plastic and – could I please make his children be normal for <em>once</em>.”</p>
<p>Hopper’s silent for another long moment. He still doesn’t turn to look at Joyce, but he does at least seem to remember his cigarette is there, bringing it to his mouth and breathing out a stream of smoke into the bracing air before he says, “So it wasn’t really his breathing you recognised, huh.”</p>
<p>“It – it <em>was</em>. But also – if I’d said about the phone -” Joyce crosses one leg over the other, and grabs her knee with both hands, giving it a little bounce. “You wouldn’t have believed me. Or worse.”</p>
<p>She doesn’t need to explain the <em>or worse</em>.</p>
<p>Neither of them says anything for a long while after that.</p>
<p>“Tell me about her?” Joyce asks, at last, as much out of genuine curiosity as because she wants to break the silence.</p>
<p>Hopper starts, glancing back over his shoulder at her. “Who – Sara?”</p>
<p>Joyce nods. “What was she like? What made you think she was…you know. <em>Special?</em>”</p>
<p>She doesn’t get an answer right away. But then, she wasn’t expecting to.</p>
<p>“She was six. When she -” Hopper takes a long breath, letting it out with a huff and a shake of his head. “She’d be about Jonathan’s age now. Loved…princess stories. Tea parties. All that shit. She had this – stuffed cat, took it everywhere…”</p>
<p>He’s silent for another, heavy moment, before he says, “Sometimes, she’d get this – this <em>look</em>. Like she was seeing something you couldn’t. And then she’d tell you things. About people. Things she never could’ve known.”</p>
<p>“What kind of -”</p>
<p>“She knew about Tom White’s cancer before he told anybody. Knew Mrs. Carlton at the convenience store was pregnant even before <em>she</em> did.”</p>
<p>“Sounds – a little like Jonathan,” Joyce says. She reaches for another cigarette, but the pack is empty. She could have <em>sworn</em> she hadn’t worked her way through that much of the pack.</p>
<p>Hopper nods, once. “It used to scare her so bad when it happened. Worried the hell out of us, too, but then she got sick, and the doctors said it could just be a symptom, or a side effect from the treatments. And we had…bigger things to worry about.”</p>
<p>He breathes out a long sigh, flicking his cigarette butt onto the gravel of the drive before turning to face Joyce again. “Look. No offense. But I don’t think you understand what you’re getting yourself into.”</p>
<p>“Of course not,” Joyce snaps back, stung. “Of <em>course</em> I don’t. How could I? That’s why I’m asking for your <em>help</em>. You – you know more than I do about – who might have done this, how, how we could maybe -”</p>
<p>“Joyce.” The single word is deep and solemn, like a bucket of cold water over Joyce’s hopes. “I didn’t just decide to give up on Sara out of the blue, you know.”</p>
<p>“I’m – I’m sure -”</p>
<p>Hopper goes on, low and relentless, like Joyce hadn’t spoken. “The doctors and nurses all swore blind she’d died. We – Diane and I <em>watched</em> her flatline. The – the shrink said it was normal. To think you’d seen them, in a crowd, or heard their voice -”</p>
<p>He shakes his head. “Diane bought it. I <em>didn’t</em>. It messed with us, with me. Started to mess with work. Evidence went missing, cases got screwed up. And – I wasn’t drinking, so much, yet, but I still started having – blackouts. Gaps, in my memory. I’d wake up somewhere and not know where I was, how I’d got there…what I’d done. Couldn’t trust a damn thing I remembered. Couldn’t trust a damn thing I <em>saw</em>…”</p>
<p>Joyce wishes just hearing this didn’t feel so much like an icy fist closing around the base of her neck. “That – it sounds – <em>awful</em>, I – I’m so sorry.”</p>
<p>Hopper half-shrugs before continuing, each word grinding against the next like they’re an enormous chain being dragged out of him, link by rusty link. “After that…even <em>I</em> wouldn’t have believed me if I’d said one of the taxi companies was following me around. That I’d seen strangers in three-piece suits coming out of the evidence lockup. That I thought our place was bugged. That my dead daughter’d called out for me when they wheeled her out under a sheet, that she’d had -” He shakes his head, like he can’t believe the words about to come out of his own mouth. “<em>Abilities</em>. Who was I to say what was real and what wasn’t?”</p>
<p>Joyce is suddenly, frantically grateful that Jonathan had made her sign that stupid piece of paper.</p>
<p>“I thought I was crazy,” Hopper says, at last meeting her eyes. Joyce’s breath catches. “<em>Everybody</em> thought I was crazy. Diane -”</p>
<p>He bites the rest of the sentence off.</p>
<p>Joyce decides, sensibly, to pretend that last word hadn’t made it out of his mouth. “You weren’t. You aren’t.”</p>
<p>The laugh that wrenches its way out of Hopper is dark and bitter. “You’ve gotta see how that’s worse.”</p>
<p>Joyce’s confusion must show on her face, because Hopper lets out a long sigh and slumps back against the post, pressing a hand against his face.</p>
<p>It’s a long, silent moment before he tries to explain. “I – I <em>couldn’t</em> help Terry Ives. Couldn’t even hear her out. If I just lost my mind – at least nobody got hurt but me. And Diane, but she -” He gives another little, grim chuckle with no humour in it at all. “Well, <em>she</em> bounced back. But – if I <em>wasn’t</em> crazy -”</p>
<p>“If you weren’t crazy?”</p>
<p>“Then they took that woman’s baby.” He shakes his head, again, his eyes sinking shut as he blows out a heavy breath. “They took <em>Sara</em>. She was alive. She was <em>alive</em>, somewhere, and alone and scared, and helpless – she needed me, and I -”</p>
<p>“No.” Joyce is up and out of the chair before she even realises she means to go over to him. “No, you can’t do this to yourself -”</p>
<p>“To <em>myself</em>? Who cares what I do to <em>myself</em>? What about what I did to <em>her</em>?” Hopper brushes Joyce’s attempts at comfort aside, turning to look out at the yard again. “If all of this is real, then – I could’ve saved her, Joyce. There was something I could’ve done. And I <em>didn’t</em>.”</p>
<p>Joyce doesn’t know what to say to that.</p>
<p>“I’m not trying to scare you. I’m just trying to warn you. These are serious people. And they play for keeps.” Hopper’s eyes, as he searches Joyce’s face, are soft and apologetic, but his words are ruthless. “You have to start preparing yourself for the possibility that you aren’t going to get Will back.”</p>
<p>Joyce can’t find her voice for a moment.</p>
<p>“I can’t,” she says, at last. “Hop, I <em>can’t</em>. I don’t care if I – if I end up like Terry Ives. If I end up <em>dead.</em>”</p>
<p>“Jonathan might.”</p>
<p>Joyce has to shut her eyes, for a moment, shaking her head.</p>
<p>“No,” she says. “<em>No</em>. I can’t, I can’t <em>choose</em> between them -”</p>
<p>“You might have to.”</p>
<p>Joyce looks Hopper straight in the eye. She doesn’t need to be able to read his mind to know that he doesn’t want to be telling her this any more than she wants to hear it.</p>
<p>He’s been where she is. No parent <em>wants</em> to give up a beloved child. He hadn’t gone along with it willingly. He’d fought every step of the way.</p>
<p>And still ended up here.</p>
<p>Terry Ives couldn’t beat them with the law. Jim Hopper couldn’t beat them with whatever connections he’d made and skills he’d acquired during the years he doesn’t talk about. For a second, Joyce can’t feel anything but a heavy, suffocating blackness coming down all around her. What does she have that they didn’t? How could she be so arrogant to think she could be different?</p>
<p>But then Joyce thinks, sharply, of that little blue face lying in the cold steel and concrete of the morgue, of her <em>son</em> in the grasp of those <em>monsters</em>, and feels something inside her go <em>snap</em>.</p>
<p>“No,” she says, planting her feet against the creaking boards of the porch. She still doesn’t even come up to Hopper’s shoulder, but – staring him down, she feels a little more solid, a little braver. “No. I <em>won’t.</em> You and Jonathan both want me to – to sit quiet and keep my head down, but – that doesn’t guarantee anything! We’ve been doing that for seventeen <em>years</em> and – they still took Will! If they get away with that, what’s to stop them coming for Jonathan next? For someone else’s child? Who <em>else</em> are they going to take, Hop? Who else’s life are they going to destroy? How long are we going to let them go on <em>stealing</em> our <em>children!</em>”</p>
<p>“<em>Joyce</em>. Do you honestly think you can <em>stop</em> them?”</p>
<p>Joyce looks him in the face.</p>
<p>“Yes,” she says, simply. And then, “No. Maybe. I don’t care. I don’t <em>care</em>. I’m going to bring Will home.”</p>
<p>Hopper’s still giving her that terrible, pitying look. Joyce glares him down. “Maybe there was something more you could’ve done, back then. But that was back then. You’ve got a chance to do something now. Please. Help me find my son.”</p>
<p>“Joyce -”</p>
<p>Joyce looks into the teeth of his stare, and says, “Because I’m going to find him. Whether you help me or not.”</p>
<p>For a silent moment, neither of them moves. At least that awful pity’s faded from Hopper’s face. From the way he’s looking at her now, Joyce thinks he’s – taking her measure. Reconsidering, again, how he’s always seen her.</p>
<p>Which is fair. She’s been doing the same to him.</p>
<p>Then he breaks eye contact, shaking his head as he turns back out toward the yard, like he can’t quite believe the words coming out of his own mouth. “Fine. Fine. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”</p>
<p>Joyce breathes out. She can <em>feel</em> herself start to relax. “Thank you. I – thank you.”</p>
<p>“Don’t thank me now. Wait ‘til you’re a vegetable. Or a headstone.”</p>
<p>Joyce opens her mouth to protest, but Hopper’s attention’s not on her anymore. He’s staring hard at the trees off to their right, and – something that’s half-hidden behind them. Something that gleams bright in the fading sun.</p>
<p>Joyce follows close on his heels as he strides across the drive and the dying lawn. Fear curls icy fingers around her heart with every step, and clenches into a tight fist when Hopper reaches into the tangle of branches and pulls out –</p>
<p>A bicycle.</p>
<p>Not Will’s bicycle. For a second, Joyce thinks it is, before she remembers Will’s bike is in the back shed, with the snow shovels and the lawnmower. Jonathan had taken it out there after Hopper had brought it back, when Joyce hadn’t been able to bring herself to look at it.</p>
<p>Hopper turns a wordless, questioning look on Joyce, who shakes her head. “I don’t -” she starts.</p>
<p>But she <em>does</em>. This isn’t Will’s bike, but she knows it anyway. She saw it – not so long ago. Just last night, before the police came to her door. It feels like a lifetime ago.</p>
<p>And that’s not the first time she’d seen it.</p>
<p>“That’s – that’s Mike Wheeler’s,” Joyce says, with a wave at the bike. “What’s it doing <em>here</em>?”</p>
<p>Hopper’s scowl gets deeper, and he mutters a curse under his breath. “I <em>told</em> those brats not to go out looking for him. Does nobody in this town listen to a word I say?”</p>
<p>Joyce isn’t listening to him. There’s something, something about the bike. About Mike Wheeler and this bike, disappearing into these trees. Something that’s nagging at the back of her memory. This bike, and Mike Wheeler, and – someone else…</p>
<p>“Hop,” she says, feeling like she’s standing on a snow-capped mountain, like a word too loud or at the wrong moment could send the whole thing roaring down on their heads. “Terry Ives.”</p>
<p>“What about her?”</p>
<p>“Her baby. The one they stole.”</p>
<p>“Yeah?”</p>
<p>Joyce hesitates just a moment before asking, “Was it a little girl?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A moment, now, to remember the monsters.</p>
<p>Huge reels of tape whirl and clack in the wall, over flickering screens. A row of people in headsets, listening, like prospectors panning for gold in the chatter of an entire town.</p>
<p>There is no bold signal from a ham radio set. No cry from another world. They are searching for the needle in the haystack by looking for the thread strung through it.</p>
<p>And they find it.</p>
<p>A head in the row rises. An earpiece is pushed aside. An eye is caught.</p>
<p>A call to the police station is listened to.</p>
<p>And a Power &amp; Light van is dispatched, to investigate the mechanism in a pair of shattered sliding doors.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Mike sneaks in through the basement door and, when his mother calls them all for dinner, pretends he’s been there all afternoon.</p>
<p>His ankle is still throbbing whenever he puts his weight on it, but more like a nasty bruise than the sharp, unbearable pain from earlier. There’s already a dark shadow starting to bloom up from under the skin, when he rolls up the hem of his jeans to check. It wraps halfway around his ankle and it’s almost as big as his palm. It’s going to hurt for a good long while, but at least it’s not broken.</p>
<p>He wishes the hurt of El’s betrayal would fade as fast.</p>
<p>The worst part is how – how <em>stupid</em> he feels about it. Lucas had tried to warn him. Even Dustin had known something wasn’t right. But Mike had fallen for her innocent act. Hook, line, and sinker.</p>
<p>She’d just been so convincing. She’d had no reason, he’d thought, to lie. And she’d seemed – so <em>genuine</em>. So scared, when they’d found her. So grateful, when they’d brought her back and kept her a secret. So happy just to be around them.</p>
<p>He should have seen it coming. Shouldn’t have been so trusting. Should have listened to his friends.</p>
<p>Lucas was right about him.</p>
<p>Mike sulks his way through pot roast and steamed vegetables, trying his best to ignore his mother’s pity and clumsy, pointed attempts to get him to talk about how he feels. He wants to yell at her that Will’s not dead, but – she’d probably just decide he’s in denial and want to make him talk about it even <em>more</em>.</p>
<p>Nancy, he notices, also only picks sullenly at her dinner, and leaves half of it on her plate before retreating upstairs as soon as she possibly can.</p>
<p>“Nancy,” their mom calls after her, huffing out a sigh when Nancy doesn’t stop or look back. “I swear, that girl’s going to make me grey before my time.”</p>
<p>“You look lovely, dear. Don’t change a thing,” Mike’s dad says, automatically, not taking his eyes off his food. Mike’s mom shoots him a look, like she can’t quite believe her ears.</p>
<p>“Ted, what were we talking about?”</p>
<p>Mike’s dad looks up with a hunted expression. “Dyeing your hair? Mike, pass the salt.”</p>
<p>Mike’s mom keeps staring at him for a long moment, disbelief curdling into anger. Holly, in her high chair, sticks a baby carrot in her mouth and watches them like a Roman emperor waiting for his gladiators to start hitting each other.</p>
<p>“I don’t believe this,” Mike’s mom says, at last. “Ted Wheeler, have you heard a single word I’ve said?” Her eyebrows furrow, and she adds, with growing anger, “And you think I’m going <em>grey</em>?”</p>
<p>Mike’s dad casts a baffled look over at Mike, who crosses his arms and settles back in his seat and does not come to his dad’s rescue.</p>
<p>Luckily for Ted Wheeler, the doorbell does. Mike’s mom gives an exasperated huff at the sound, and pushes her chair back from the table. “Who comes around in the middle of dinner?” she demands, standing and storming out of the room. Mike feels a little sorry for whoever’s at the door. Her voice floats back to them. “<em>Some</em> people are <em>so inconsiderate</em>.”</p>
<p>Mike’s dad watches her go, then turns back to Mike, and looks pointedly at the salt.</p>
<p>Mike considers handing it over. Really. He does. But then he hears the front door open, and the voice of the person on the other side echoing down the hall. “Evening, Karen. Is Mike around?”</p>
<p>“<em>Shit!</em>” Mike hisses, and his dad frowns at him.</p>
<p>“Language, Michael.”</p>
<p>Mike ignores him. He’s already on his feet.</p>
<p>“What? No, no he’s not in <em>trouble</em>,” the chief is saying to his mom, as Mike edges out through the kitchen and peers into the hall. “There was a kid causing some mischief downtown, some folks said they saw him and his friends passing, thought they might’ve seen something. I’m stopping by the Hendersons’ and the Sinclairs’ too.”</p>
<p>Shit. Shit shit <em>shit</em>. They should never have stopped at the Big Buy. They should never have let Steve tell everybody El was a friend of theirs. Why does she make Mike so <em>stupid</em>?</p>
<p>Mike turns and bolts back through the kitchen, towards the basement and the back door. His dad’s annoyed call of “Michael?” follows him, but Mike doesn’t care. A few more feet and he’s home free –</p>
<p>A hand closes over his upper arm and yanks him to a halt. Mike struggles, but the grip on his arm doesn’t break. He looks up, into a frown that’s as confused as it is angry.</p>
<p>“Young man,” Mike’s dad says, “why are the police looking for you?”</p>
<p>They sit him down in the living room, in the uncomfortable chair, his mom standing beside and just behind him with one hand nervously digging clawed fingers into his shoulder. Mike’s sure he’s going to have five identical bruises in the shape of her fingernails in the morning.</p>
<p>His dad, unsurprisingly, settles into his La-Z-Boy and gets comfortable, watching the proceedings with mild interest and just a shade of disapproval. Mike wonders if he’d get any more of a response if he’d <em>actually</em> done something wrong.</p>
<p>Hopper talks – and glares – like somebody’s told him he has to at least <em>try</em> to be nice, but he’s got less patience than he had the day he’d interviewed the Party and he’s just waiting for Mike to give him a reason. “Again. Nobody’s in trouble -”</p>
<p>“Then why are you here?” Mike says, and is surprised to find that he can actually <em>see</em> the chief inching closer to the end of that already-short patience.</p>
<p>“The girl,” Hopper says, just this side of a threat. “I know about her. Your new friend. The one you called – Eleanor?”</p>
<p>“It’s her name,” Mike tries. It’s obviously no use trying to pretend he doesn’t know what the chief’s talking about. And here he’d really thought Will’s mom wouldn’t blab. He’s just making all kinds of bad calls about who to trust, these days. “And we’re <em>not</em> friends.”</p>
<p>The chief’s voice gets lower and steadier, something almost like a smile but with absolutely no humour in it crossing his face as he says, “Fine. Your new enemy. Where is she?”</p>
<p>Mike shrugs.</p>
<p>His mother’s death grip on his shoulder tightens. “<em>Michael</em>.”</p>
<p>“<em>Mom</em>. I don’t know! She left and she didn’t tell us where she was going.” That’s true enough that it might even fool Lucas.</p>
<p>“All right,” the chief interrupts, before Mike’s mom can really start in on him. “Where <em>would</em> she go?”</p>
<p>Mike shrugs again. “How should I know? She’s – new around here. Doesn’t know many places.” He squirms against his mother’s grip, trying to get free. He has no luck.</p>
<p>Hopper’s stare is flat and close to unreadable, but Mike thinks he still sees a shade of disappointment. “You really have no idea where she might be.”</p>
<p>“<em>No.</em> I told you already, okay? We weren’t friends.” He wishes the words didn’t still taste so bitter in his mouth. “Are we done yet? I have homework.”</p>
<p>Hopper keeps that stare fixed on Mike’s face for another long moment. Mike stares back, defiant.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Hopper says, at last, pushing himself to his feet. “Yeah, we’re done. Thanks for your time.”</p>
<p>Mike’s mom – and her grip on his shoulder - starts to relax, as Hopper makes his way towards the door. But Mike can’t breathe a sigh of relief himself just yet. There’s something about the chief that’s just a little too smug for somebody who’s leaving empty-handed.</p>
<p>Mike finds out why when Hopper stops on the doorstep and turns back towards the house. “Oh, and one more thing. We found a kid’s bike out by the Byers’ place.” He doesn’t smile as he says it, just catches Mike’s eye with that same flat almost-scowl, but somehow he still manages to radiate self-satisfaction as he adds, “If you know anybody who might be missing one, have them swing by the station tomorrow and identify it.”</p>
<p>“I’m sure Mike will pass that along,” Mike’s dad says, cheerfully oblivious to Mike’s silent fuming. “Evening, Jim. Good luck tracking down that kid.”</p>
<p>The chief raises a hand in acknowledgment, and then heads off across the lawn back to his truck.</p>
<p>The door’s no sooner shut behind him than Mike’s mom is on Mike, worry and anger warring with curiosity and losing badly. “<em>Eleanor?</em>”</p>
<p>“Mom!” Mike pushes past her, heading for the stairs. “I meant it about the homework.”</p>
<p>“<em>What</em> has gotten <em>into</em> you two?” his mom calls up after him, as he thumps his way up towards his bedroom. “You and Nancy both used to tell me everything -”</p>
<p>“No we didn’t!” Mike yells back over his shoulder at her. And, because he isn’t looking where he’s going, nearly collides with Nancy where she’s hiding just around the bend in the staircase, obviously eavesdropping on his interrogation. She glares at him, and grabs him just above the elbow, hauling him up the stairs after her. Mike’s starting to get sick of being manhandled.</p>
<p>“Why are the <em>cops</em> here? What did you <em>do</em>?” Nancy hisses, as she drags Mike up into the upstairs hall.</p>
<p>“Ow, let go of me! I don’t know, why is <em>Steve</em> sneaking in your window?”</p>
<p>“Shut up about Steve! You don’t know anything about it!”</p>
<p>“Yeah, well, you don’t know anything about <em>anything</em>, now leave me <em>alone</em>!” Mike wrenches his arm out of Nancy’s grip and throws himself into his room, slamming the door behind him. He throws the lock, ignoring the single angry thump Nancy gives his door as he goes running – okay, run-limping – for his walkie.</p>
<p>“Guys? Lucas? Dustin? Come in, come in, code red!”</p>
<p>It feels like an eternity of nearly-constant hailing before Lucas finally picks up. “Mike, what -”</p>
<p>“The chief just came to my <em>house!</em> He’s looking for El and he’s going to see you guys next!” Mike remembers himself enough to add, “Over.”</p>
<p>“So? Why should we care if he finds her?” There’s a long pause, before Lucas adds, with a nearly audible eyeroll, “<em>Over.</em>”</p>
<p>“Because he’s on his way over to ask <em>you</em> about her too? Because he knows we’ve been out looking for Will? Because he’s holding my bike hostage until I tell him where she is, and I don’t <em>know</em>?” Mike stops for breath, tries to calm the panic pounding through his veins. “Because – because, she warned us not to tell anybody about her. Because of the bad men. That they’d <em>kill</em> us. Was she lying about <em>that,</em> too? Over!”</p>
<p>The silence is unbearable.</p>
<p>“No,” Lucas says, finally. “No, she wasn’t.” And then, he asks the question that’s settling into Mike’s mind like a drop of ink in water. “Hey, have you heard from Dustin yet? Over.”</p>
<p>“Shit,” Mike mutters to himself. To Lucas, he says, “We gotta get over there.”</p>
<p>“Meet you on the corner of Dearborn and Maple in five minutes,” Lucas says. “Over and out.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jonathan feels slightly stupid.</p>
<p>His mom was right about the monster. And it looks like she’s right that Will’s not dead. So magical talking Christmas lights should not be so much of a stretch. Especially not for the boy who reads minds.</p>
<p>But – he doesn’t know. It feels like there should be some kind of a limit. Like things should only be able to get so strange, and no stranger.</p>
<p>Between the monster, and Barbara Holland and Hopper’s daughter <em>and</em> a third girl they don’t know turning out to also have powers, and someone faking Will’s death, and the DoE lab somehow being mixed up in all of it, Jonathan thinks they skated past that limit long ago.</p>
<p>He still can’t hear so much as a whisper of Will.</p>
<p>“Come on, baby,” his mom repeats, in the general direction of the alphabet wall. “Just a little flicker. Something. Tell me you’re here, that you can hear me.”</p>
<p>The living room stays dark.</p>
<p>“Maybe – maybe he’s out of range,” Jonathan suggests, more to brush some of those worst-case scenarios out of orbit around his mom’s head than because he really believes it. He’s still a little pissed about being told to stay here and watch for any other sign from Will while Hopper goes out looking for this mysterious girl, but – he can’t help but agree with the chief’s thought that they should try to keep his mom out of harm’s way. If that means sitting here with her and talking to a string of Christmas lights, then that’s what Jonathan is going to do. Even if it does make him feel hatefully helpless. And slightly stupid.</p>
<p>His mom shakes her head. “It doesn’t work like that for him, he – remember your dad’s phone? And the yard light? If it’s connected to a, a wire, he should be able to…”</p>
<p>“Maybe he can’t get in contact with a wire, then,” Jonathan tries. “Or maybe – maybe he can’t hear us. He might just be out of earshot.” Wherever he is. There’s something about all of this that’s still not adding up for him. Hopper’s convinced that Will’s got to be being held at the lab outside of town, and Jonathan’s mom seems to be going along with it out of a lack of any better idea, but – Will’s <em>thing</em> is and always has been electricity. Nothing that would let him hear his mom from their living room if he was locked up at the lab.</p>
<p>And yet, Jonathan’s mom’s got clear memories of having a full conversation with Will through the lights.</p>
<p>And how does a monster that comes out of the walls fit into <em>any</em> of this? It’s too much of a coincidence for it to have turned up at the same time as Will went missing. Unless those two things are connected somehow.</p>
<p>“Maybe,” his mom says, sounding dejected. She sinks onto the couch, with a heavy sigh, and looks up at Jonathan, a silent invitation to join her.</p>
<p>Jonathan considers for a moment, before sitting down beside her. His mom leans into his side, curling her arm through his and resting her head against his shoulder. She doesn’t say anything, and doesn’t take the moment to try to think of something to say.</p>
<p>It’s peaceful, for a little while. And then it’s just oppressively quiet.</p>
<p>Too quiet, actually, and a thought strikes Jonathan. “Where’s Chester?”</p>
<p>His mom looks up, struggling for a second to readjust her train of thought, remember their dog. “What? Oh. I – I don’t know, I’ve had so much on my mind – I haven’t seen him since -”</p>
<p>The memory of that blank face tearing through the wallpaper rises to the surface of her thoughts, and she turns a horrified look up at Jonathan.</p>
<p>Jonathan feels slightly sick, but he manages to stuff it down. “I’m sure he’s fine. Probably just got out when you went running out of the house and got after a rabbit or something in the woods. He’ll be back.”</p>
<p>His mom isn’t convinced, but she doesn’t want to think about it any more than Jonathan does. “Do you – Jonathan, do you really think your brother’s still alive? Or are you just humouring me?”</p>
<p>Jonathan’s quiet, for a moment, chewing on that.</p>
<p>“That wasn’t him,” he says. “In the morgue.”</p>
<p>There’s a sudden vehemence in his mother’s voice. “No. No, it <em>wasn’t</em>.”</p>
<p>“So…” Jonathan shrugs, with a sigh. “I – I <em>want</em> to think he’s alive. I want him to be alive.” He looks up, at the web of lights strung across the ceiling, and asks, “Is that enough?”</p>
<p>His mom’s arm tightens in his, something somehow fierce and soft at the same time settling out in her mind. “Yes, baby. Yes. That’s enough.”</p>
<p>They watch the lights in silence for a little while. There’s not even a flicker.</p>
<p>“You know,” Jonathan offers, finally, “you’re taking the whole…us talking about it thing really well.”</p>
<p>His mom looks up again, a little surprised. “I – Jonathan, you know I’ve always <em>known -</em>”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Jonathan admits. “But knowing something and seeing it in action can be two different things.”</p>
<p>His mom’s hand closes, hard, on his arm. She does an admirable job of keeping the furious things she’s thinking out of her voice as she says, “Is this because of your father again?”</p>
<p>Jonathan doesn’t, he thinks, <em>like</em> feeling like he’s so easy to read. “Not just him. Most people think they want somebody to see who they really are underneath, but when they meet somebody who actually <em>can</em>…”</p>
<p>He thinks his mom’s mental comment about <em>teenagers</em> is unwarranted.</p>
<p>“Isn’t there…<em>somebody</em> you can talk to, though, Jonathan? It seems – it sounds lonely.”</p>
<p>Jonathan looks up, again, at the lights, still dark and dead against the ceiling.</p>
<p>“Will,” he admits. “He never – I never had to – <em>have</em> to tone it down for him. He just -” He’s horrified to feel his throat getting tight, his eyes hot.</p>
<p>“I miss him,” he manages, and then can’t get any more words past the lump closing off his throat.</p>
<p>His mom makes a little noise, like an animal in pain, and wraps her other arm around him too. She starts to rock, gently, back and forth, and Jonathan leans his head down against hers and lets himself pretend, for a moment, that he’s just a kid again. That he can just curl up in her arms for a little while and, somehow, everything will be all right.</p>
<p>When he feels like he can speak without his voice breaking on him, Jonathan says, “We – we have a rule. Me and Will.”</p>
<p>His mom stills, stroking a hand over the back of his head. “What’s that?”</p>
<p>“When he asked – when he asks what I’m thinking. I have to tell the truth. Doesn’t matter what it is.” Jonathan can’t help the smile, even though it feels like it’ll make his whole face tear apart like wet tissue. “He said it makes us even.”</p>
<p>It doesn’t, of course. Nothing could make Jonathan even with anyone whose secrets he steals without even trying. But when it comes to Will, he’s always done his best to at least come close.</p>
<p>“I’d do the same for you, if you want,” he says, and his mom gives him another hard squeeze.</p>
<p>She’s – <em>proud</em> of him, Jonathan realises, with no small amount of surprise. She’s always leaned on him, maybe a little more than she should have, but somehow he’s grown up honest and kind and – and <em>good</em>.</p>
<p>“Flatterer,” Jonathan mutters, and his mom makes an exasperated noise at the back of her throat.</p>
<p>“I’m never going to be able to surprise you again, am I?”</p>
<p>“You never were in the first place,” Jonathan says, with a smile.</p>
<p>When his mom smiles back, it’s fond, with just a flicker of mischief. “And you’ve just been playing along all these Christmases and birthdays? How did I manage to raise such a - considerate young man?”</p>
<p>And then there’s a knock on the door.</p>
<p>Jonathan’s mom is up off the couch and down the hall before Jonathan’s even gotten to his feet. She sounds…bemused, though, when she calls back to him. “Jonathan? It’s…for you.”</p>
<p>“What?” Jonathan asks, as he rounds the corner. Or starts to ask, anyway. Because his question’s quickly answered for him. Standing in the doorway, hands in the pockets of his jeans, with a sheepish expression on his battered face, is the last person Jonathan ever expected to see on his front porch.</p>
<p>Steve Harrington actually perks up when Jonathan steps into view, with a little smile that vanishes so fast Jonathan wonders if he’d imagined it. “Hi.”</p>
<p>“…hi,” Jonathan says. He can’t think of a single other thing to say. Oh, except – “What happened to your <em>face</em>?”</p>
<p>Steve reaches up, pressing ginger fingers to his swollen cheekbone, like he’d somehow forgotten about the massive shiner he’s sporting. There’s a dark flicker of memory – <em>I said take it </em>back<em>, why don’t you make me</em> – and a frown shadows Steve’s face for a moment.</p>
<p>“Picked a fight,” he says, like that explains anything. “Look, I – I - I owe you an apology, okay? I was an ass about the – at the party the other night.” His eyes flick over to Jonathan’s mom, who’s taken a few steps back from the door but is still hovering in the hall.</p>
<p>“She knows,” Jonathan says. “She’s seen it too.” He looks Steve in the eye that’s not swollen halfway closed, and demands, “What’s this <em>really</em> about?”</p>
<p>Steve looks uncomfortable. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, wrapping an arm around himself and gripping his other arm above the elbow, like he’s cold. “Look, now I’m thinking about it, this probably isn’t a good time for you guys, what with – everything -”</p>
<p>“Will’s not dead,” Jonathan says, flatly, crossing his arms. Most people are easy to read, but Steve – Jonathan’s kept his distance all these years, for good reason, but it turns out Steve is like a radio station. He broadcasts <em>everything</em>. If Jonathan couldn’t read his mind, he’d only have to read his face. “You’re here because you did something you can’t explain. And you’re hoping I have some kind of answers for you.”</p>
<p>Steve turns wide eyes – well, eye – on him.</p>
<p>“Jesus,” he breathes. “Barbara was right. You <em>do</em> know stuff.”</p>
<p>“More than you know,” Jonathan sighs. More than he <em>wants</em> to, most of the time. “You – you should probably come inside.” Tempting as it is to slam the door and leave Steve to stew on the doorstep.</p>
<p>The relief and gratitude in the smile that blooms painfully across Steve’s face – a split lip, too, whoever beat his face in really went for all the obvious cliches – makes Jonathan feel briefly, sharply guilty about that thought.</p>
<p>But – finding out he’s not alone, that he and his brother aren’t just lonely anomalies in a world of “normal”, had been exciting when it had been Barbara Holland. Someone Jonathan can at least <em>picture</em> himself talking to, even if he’s been too much of a coward to actually do it yet. He has nothing at all to say to Steve Harrington.</p>
<p>Steve, however, does not seem to feel the same way about <em>him</em>.</p>
<p>Actually, Steve can’t seem to shut up. He somehow manages to ask what feels like a million questions in the short trek between the front door and the kitchen, where Jonathan digs a bag of peas out of the freezer and offers it to him for his eye. What’s with the living room? What did he and Nancy and Barbara find out about the monster? Can he see the picture? What does Jonathan <em>mean</em>, Will’s not dead? Then who did they pull out of the quarry? Mark Kowalski had seemed really sure –</p>
<p>“Mark Kowalski,” Jonathan interrupts, there, “is an idiot who thinks Chrissy Jacobs would date him if he could just grow a moustache.”</p>
<p>Steve’s wide-eyed look hasn’t gotten any less impressed. “Jesus. And here we all thought you were just a loner. You’ve got more gossip than Nicole.”</p>
<p>Jonathan shoots him a grim smile. “I get half my information <em>from</em> Nicole.” Not that she’d ever knowingly give him the time of day. Working with her in the darkroom is always unbearable. Who <em>wants</em> to know everybody else’s dirty little secrets?</p>
<p>“And the other half?”</p>
<p>Jonathan shifts, uncomfortably, in the vinyl-upholstered kitchen chair.</p>
<p>Steve totally misreads Jonathan’s discomfort. “Look, I – I shouldn’t have called you any of that stuff, on Tuesday. I didn’t -”</p>
<p>“You meant it,” Jonathan says, to the fridge.</p>
<p>It’s Steve’s turn to fidget uncomfortably, pulling the bag of peas away from his eye and readjusting it before he settles it back into place. “Yeah, well, doesn’t mean I should’ve said it. I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>He means that, too, Jonathan realises with surprise. That’s the thing he’s starting to notice, the more time he spends in range of Steve Harrington’s thoughts. For all that he acts cool and disaffected at school, there’s something fundamentally – <em>earnest</em> about the guy. Something surprisingly straightforward about his motivations, whether he’s being cruel or kind. He genuinely just wants people to <em>like </em>him. Like an enormous, exuberant puppy somehow given human form.</p>
<p>No wonder everybody <em>does </em>like him.</p>
<p>“You weren’t all wrong,” Jonathan admits. “I <em>was</em> being creepy. Shouldn’t have taken those photos.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, well…” Steve huffs out the flare of anger at the memory. He has to remind himself that he needs Jonathan’s help. But also – and Jonathan’s a little affronted by the image of himself he gets from Steve, sad and small and pitiable, hunched over contrite at the kitchen table, alone and friendless and just having lost his little brother – “Don’t do it again?”</p>
<p>Jonathan glares at him until Steve mentally revises his impression to include <em>oh yeah, and a prickly asshole</em>. He doesn’t need pity. Especially not from <em>Steve</em>. “Next time I won’t take photos.”</p>
<p>Steve says it off the cuff, as the idea strikes him, like it’s that easy. “Next time, maybe you could actually come to the party <em>with</em> us instead of lurking in the bushes like a stalker.”</p>
<p>Jonathan stares at him, looking for the trick, the trap. He finds nothing but a wall of well-meaning sincerity.</p>
<p>“You don’t think Tommy H and Carol might have something to say about that?” he tries, and Steve’s expression darkens.</p>
<p>
  <em>- waited and waited, you totally blew us off…had to walk home – </em>
</p>
<p><em>- busy hunting </em>monsters<em> with your little -</em></p>
<p>
  <em>- shut up, you don’t know - </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>- for attention…you and Nancy wouldn’t let her watch. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>- assholes. We’re all a bunch of – </em>
</p>
<p><em>- talk about my girl like that…just because </em>we<em> don’t want to join the freakshow – </em></p>
<p>“Yeah, I don’t think we’re friends anymore,” Steve says, pressing the bag of frozen peas hard against his black eye and hissing in a pained breath. He’s talking to himself more than Jonathan when he adds, “If we ever really were.”</p>
<p>It’s Jonathan’s turn to feel an unexpected surge of pity for Steve. Sitting there with his face bashed in by someone he’d called a friend, questioning the honesty of every relationship he’s ever had, every kind thing anyone’s ever done for him – he’s not so cock of the walk right now. More like a puppy who’s been kicked. Confused about why bad things are happening to him. Half-convinced it’s his fault.</p>
<p>Jonathan <em>does</em> let him stew in it for a little while, this time. Maybe it’ll do Steve some good to have to actually think about how he treats people.</p>
<p>But in the end, he can’t just sit there and let the guy suffer. “<em>Yes,</em> they were your friends,” he sighs, and Steve looks up, startled, like he’d forgotten Jonathan was sitting there.</p>
<p>“How would <em>you</em> know?” There’s a stung note of sneering accusation in it, but under that, it’s a genuine question.</p>
<p>Jonathan thinks about how to frame the answer. He’s not even sure he can put it into words. It’s just, sometimes –</p>
<p>“Sometimes, around you, people are – different,” he tries, and Steve snorts a mirthless laugh.</p>
<p>“Yeah, got that. Barbara was kind enough to put that one into words for me.” He shakes his head, dislodging the peas, and has to readjust the bag again. “And apparently I’m the only asshole who never noticed.”</p>
<p>“No, like -” Jonathan taps his temple. Steve’s good eye gets, if it’s possible, even wider.</p>
<p>“Wait, you can read -”</p>
<p>“- minds, yeah. Try to keep up.” It’s the first time, Jonathan realises, that he’s ever actually admitted it out loud in so many words. And to someone he barely knows and doesn’t particularly like, at that. Although that describes nearly everybody.</p>
<p>At this rate, half the town will know by Thanksgiving. Jonathan isn’t sure how he feels about that. For some reason, he isn’t sure it’s entirely negative.</p>
<p>But now isn’t the time for navel-gazing. Steve’s still looking at him with something approaching wonder, and it’s getting uncomfortable. Not least because Jonathan had expected – at least a <em>little</em> suspicion, or anger, or <em>something</em>. He’s just all but admitted he’s been eavesdropping on everybody’s thoughts all along. If lurking in the bushes taking <em>pictures</em> is creepy…</p>
<p>“I can’t turn it off,” he says, when he realises what Steve must be assuming. Challenging Steve to – Jonathan doesn’t know. Maybe he’s just trying to pick a fight. “Every time you’ve ever got within, oh, five feet of me, I’ve been hearing every thought that crosses your mind.”</p>
<p>Jonathan’s expecting – betrayal, or anger, or revulsion. He’s not prepared for the sudden, overwhelming sadness that settles over Steve. “You can’t turn it off.” Which must mean <em>Steve</em> can’t turn it off either. Which means – no one’s ever <em>really</em> cared about him. And no one ever will. He’ll never be able to stop – <em>twisting</em> people, just by being around them –</p>
<p>“Would you cut the moping out? I <em>just</em> told you it’s not like that. And you’re giving me a headache.”</p>
<p>Steve shrugs one shoulder, and does not cut the moping out. Jonathan takes a breath, leaning his face into one hand, and tries to find a reason to be patient with him before trying again.</p>
<p>“Miss Click,” he says, starting over. “You were in talking to her one day before our class. You asked her to raise your grade.”</p>
<p>“How did you -” Steve starts, and then remembers the conversation they’ve <em>just</em> had. “Right. But – wait, I don’t think I saw you -”</p>
<p>“You didn’t. I got it from <em>her</em>.” Jonathan remembers the day only because it had been so weird. So out of character. “She wasn’t herself for the whole class. Kept spacing out, forgot she’d assigned us homework, lost her place in the material four or five times. It was like she couldn’t focus on anything except what you’d asked her to do.”</p>
<p>“Great,” Steve says, and now Jonathan can hear a little anger in it. “Great, so I break people so bad -”</p>
<p>“I’m not telling you this as – as revenge, or whatever you think it is,” Jonathan interrupts, before Steve can really start to feel sorry for himself. “I’m <em>telling</em> you this because – I’ve never seen Tommy or Carol like that. Or anybody else.” He studies Steve’s face, the cautious hope that Steve’s trying hard to squash, and admits, with a sigh, “Not even Nancy. Maybe you did – <em>influence</em> them, but you haven’t been making people do anything they really don’t want to do. Maybe it would’ve taken longer, or a little more persuasion, but you aren’t making anybody do anything they wouldn’t have done themselves.”</p>
<p>Steve’s silent for a long moment, turning that over and over with his memories of the afternoon and every revelation it’s brought.</p>
<p>“Except Miss Click,” he says, at last.</p>
<p>“Except Miss Click.”</p>
<p>“I <em>knew</em> that A was too good to be true.” Steve leans back in the kitchen chair, tipping his head back to stare up at the ceiling. “It’s still messed up, though, isn’t it? I mean, if somebody needs me to tell them to do something – were they <em>really</em> going to do it themselves? I shouldn’t be able to <em>make</em> them.”</p>
<p>Jonathan shrugs, even though Steve isn’t looking at him. “It’s not really fair to judge people on what they think but wouldn’t say, either, but…here I am.”</p>
<p>“So – what? What’re we supposed to <em>do</em>?”</p>
<p>Steve’s really upset about it, Jonathan’s surprised to realise. He’s lived with this for so long, he hasn’t even thought about half the horror-story scenarios Steve’s conjuring in his head in – years. And sure, some of those scenarios more strongly resemble the plot of <em>Carrie</em> than real life, but – Steve’s actually thinking about how his actions can affect other people. It’s something Jonathan never expected from him.</p>
<p>“Well,” Jonathan offers, like an olive branch, “you can always become a creepy loner.”</p>
<p>Steve lets his head drop back down again, the peas slipping down to fall on the table with a muffled clatter. He stares hard at Jonathan, trying to work out whether or not Jonathan’s joking.</p>
<p>Jonathan meets Steve’s eyes, and can’t hold back a snort. Steve coughs into his hand, and then they’re both laughing, at nothing in particular. Except maybe themselves.</p>
<p>The laughter dies away eventually. Jonathan sighs, and braces himself for the floodgates to open and let out the barrage of questions piling up on the tip of Steve’s tongue.</p>
<p>“So…you’ve always known you could…?” Steve gestures, with the bag of peas, in the general direction of his head.</p>
<p>Jonathan nods. “It’s kind of a hard one to miss. Especially when you can’t turn it off.”</p>
<p>“Does your mom know?”</p>
<p>“Yeah. And my dad. And Will.” And now, Chief Hopper and Steve Harrington. It’s a weird little assortment of people to take into confidence.</p>
<p>“Will. Can he -”</p>
<p>Jonathan shakes his head. He debates with himself for a moment, and then settles on keeping what Will <em>can</em> do to himself. Steve doesn’t need to know <em>everything</em>.</p>
<p>Steve doesn’t notice Jonathan’s brief mental struggle, though. He’s already moved on. “I think – I think <em>my</em> parents know. About me.” He shakes his head. “My mom, definitely. My dad might just be a regular hardass.”</p>
<p>“Do you think you did something to make them think -” Jonathan stops, as a flurry of memories flicker across Steve’s thoughts, like a film reel unspooling.</p>
<p>“They have to have known before <em>I</em> did. Dunno how. I can’t believe they never told me.”</p>
<p>“I can,” Jonathan mutters. One or two of those memories bear a striking resemblance to conversations he’s had with his own dad. Not many of them, but enough to see where Steve gets some of his ideas about <em>weirdos</em> from.</p>
<p>Steve frowns, and carefully tucks the memories back into whatever long-term storage he’d dredged them out of.</p>
<p>“So,” he says, very deliberately changing the subject. “What – what happens when <em>you</em> push?”</p>
<p>It’s not often that Jonathan finds himself with genuinely no idea what somebody’s talking about.</p>
<p>“ ‘Push’?” he asks.</p>
<p>“Yeah, you know, like -” Steve waves a hand vaguely through the air. The memory of Miss Click bubbles up again, along with a more recent memory, standing on broken glass, eyes locked with the manager of the grocery store downtown. “I mean, a nosebleed, obviously, but…”</p>
<p>“Steve. What do you <em>mean</em> by ‘push’?”</p>
<p>Steve actually does a double-take at him. “When you – I know you said you can’t turn it off, but what happens when you actually <em>try</em> to make it happen?”</p>
<p>“I don’t have to,” Jonathan says. Honestly, he’s never really tried. He’s spent most of his life just trying to make his brain <em>stop</em>.</p>
<p>“Yeah, but -” Steve stops, and gives Jonathan a long, thoughtful look. “Are you telling me you’ve never <em>tried</em>?”</p>
<p>“Thought I was the one who read minds.”</p>
<p>Steve’s getting excited, now, thinking about possibilities that make Jonathan’s head hurt just to contemplate. “Aren’t you even curious about what you could do? Maybe you could – go through people’s memories. Or -” He snaps his fingers. “Or put thoughts in somebody else’s head?”</p>
<p>Steve’s enthusiasm must be infectious. Or maybe this is what it feels like to be on the receiving end of his – charm, or – <em>power</em>, or whatever they’re going to call it. But, despite himself, Jonathan finds himself reluctantly growing curious. “That…could be cool.” And useful, especially in situations like the coroner’s office. And – he can think of a few people he wouldn’t mind enforcing a little self-awareness on, every once in a while.</p>
<p>“So? Give it a try!” Steve slaps both his hands down flat on the tabletop on either side of him, catching Jonathan’s eye with a conspiratorial smile.</p>
<p>Jonathan smiles back, and then abruptly realises he has no idea what he’s supposed to be doing. “How?”</p>
<p>Steve gestures, vaguely, with his right hand. “You just, you know…” He pauses, and frowns, realisation dawning that he has absolutely no idea how to explain. “<em>Push</em>.”</p>
<p>Jonathan shakes his head. “Show me.”</p>
<p>Steve squints at him in confusion.</p>
<p>“You’ve done it before, right? This…<em>pushing</em> thing. Can you remember what it – felt like? What you did?” Steve starts to open his mouth, and Jonathan interrupts him. “Don’t try to <em>tell</em> me. Just remember it. With as much detail as you can.”</p>
<p>“And you’ll see it in my head,” Steve says, slowly nodding, with another flicker of that wonder. “Okay. Okay, hang on…”</p>
<p>Jonathan shuts his eyes, and lets the memory wash over him. The chill in the air, the crunch of glass under his feet. And the feeling, that –</p>
<p>Steve’s right. Jonathan can’t think of any better way to describe it than a <em>push</em>.</p>
<p>“Okay,” he says, opening his eyes. “Yeah. I’ll – I’ll try it.”</p>
<p>There’s something about Steve’s smile that makes Jonathan want to smile too. Just like a puppy with a wagging tail. “All right! Okay, do you know what you’re going to send me?”</p>
<p>Jonathan doesn’t. And then, in a stroke of inspiration, he does.</p>
<p>“Got it,” he says. “Ready?”</p>
<p>It feels strange, to be trying to do this on purpose. And in reverse. Like thinking consciously about his breathing, or blinking, or how he walks. The trying makes Jonathan clumsy, at first, and nothing happens. And nothing keeps happening, until he almost gives up out of embarrassment. He feels stupid for trying, and for getting his hopes up, and for listening to <em>Steve Harrington</em> of all people in the first place, and then –</p>
<p>He can’t quite explain it. But – Jonathan finds a place where he can <em>push</em>. And when he does, it <em>gives</em> –</p>
<p>“Jesus!” Steve shouts, jumping up from his chair. “Holy shit!”</p>
<p>Jonathan gets up too, but Steve’s flash of blind panic is already fading into slightly embarrassed relief, knowing he’d just got exactly what he asked for. He leans forward against the back of the chair he’d almost knocked over, breathing hard, but there’s a sheepish smile already growing across his face. “<em>That’s</em> what you saw on Tuesday? Jesus, no wonder Barbara screamed.”</p>
<p>“It worked,” Jonathan says, a little bit unable to believe it even though he’d just <em>done</em> it.</p>
<p>“It worked,” Steve agrees, with that broad, infectious popular-boy grin. “Shit, Byers, we’re gonna have to watch out for you. You’ll be ruling the world someday.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know. I think if you have superpowers and try to do that, you get beat up by other people with superpowers,” Jonathan says, with a wry smile of his own. He can’t believe how – how <em>thrilled</em> he can feel about something that’s been just a dully-resented fact of his life for as long as he can remember. “And I couldn’t pull off a cape.”</p>
<p>Steve laughs, bright and surprised, and throws an arm around Jonathan’s shoulders for a second, giving him a little shake before releasing him again. It’s more than anyone who isn’t related to him by blood has touched him since – Jonathan actually can’t remember. He’s hideously embarrassed by the way his face goes hot, and desperately grateful for the interruption when his mom appears in the doorway, looking them both over with a nameless worry. “Is everyone all right? I heard shouting – Jonathan! You’re bleeding -”</p>
<p>“Yeah, apparently that’s normal,” Steve says, as Jonathan swipes his hand under his nose and rubs away the little trail of blood that’s settled there. “That’s how those middle school shitheads figured out there was something going on with me. Sorry, Mrs. Byers, I was the one who yelled. But you would not believe the cool thing your son can do.”</p>
<p>“Oh,” Jonathan’s mom says, her slow smile too knowing as she turns it on Jonathan. “It’s <em>cool</em>?”</p>
<p>“<em>Mom</em>,” Jonathan grumbles. He has <em>not</em> made a friend, whatever she thinks. Steve wouldn’t even be talking to him if it weren’t for the stupid powers.</p>
<p>“First they’re the reason you can’t make friends, then they’re the only reason someone might want to spend time with you? Jonathan, you need to stop selling yourself sho-” Jonathan’s mom stops in the middle of her sentence to stare at him, eyes wide, as her thoughts catch up with her. “Did – did you just -”</p>
<p>Despite himself, Jonathan can’t help but smile as he casts around for a tissue. It’s not much of a nosebleed, as they go, but he’d rather not have to scrub bloodstains out of this sweater. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.”</p>
<p>His mom breaks into an enormous smile. “That’s amazing! Sweetheart, I didn’t know you could do that.”</p>
<p>“Neither did I.” The flicker of envy in the back of Steve’s mind, seeing them together and thinking about his own mother – <em>come on, Steven, don’t make excuses, there’s always a rational explanation </em>– vanishes as soon as Jonathan turns to look back at him and says, “Steve figured it out. He’s the one who showed me how.”</p>
<p>Jonathan’s mom is burning with questions, but there’s one that stands out above all the rest. “Jonathan, do you think – if Will can’t hear us, if he’s somewhere out of earshot, do you think you could -”</p>
<p>“Mom -” Jonathan doesn’t want to get her hopes up. He didn’t even know he <em>could</em> until about five minutes ago, he’s got no idea what the limits to it are. But –</p>
<p>But…<em>Will</em>.</p>
<p>“Maybe,” he admits. “We can try.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Best wishes for the new year, everyone! May it stay weird but suck way less.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nancy’s mom comes knocking on her door not ten minutes after the chief leaves.</p>
<p>“Go away!” Nancy yells, and is completely unsurprised when her mother opens the door instead.</p>
<p>Her mother hovers, not saying anything, for what feels like an eternity, staring at Nancy’s turned back. Nancy knows that not saying anything, refusing to engage, won’t make her mom go away. But she doesn’t feel much like making this any easier on her mom than her mom’s making it on <em>her</em>. She really wishes Barb hadn’t had to go home for dinner, but since Will Byers vanished and they found out about Steve’s party, Barb’s parents have been sticklers about knowing where she is.</p>
<p>“Nancy,” her mom says, at last. “Look, I don’t know what all that was about tonight, but -”</p>
<p>“No,” Nancy says, spinning around to face her mother. “No, you don’t.”</p>
<p>Her mom gives her a helpless look, and then tries again, stepping into Nancy’s room to come sit at the foot of her bed. “Did you and Steve have a fight?”</p>
<p>“You don’t know <em>anything</em> about what’s going on with Steve.”</p>
<p>Her mom’s tone is annoyingly knowing. “Well, I know Barb’s not tutoring him in calculus.”</p>
<p>“Chemistry.”</p>
<p>Nancy’s mom shakes her head, brushing it aside. “Nancy…you know you can talk to me, right? Believe it or not, I know what you’re going through. I dated -” She pauses to give a little self-deprecating laugh. “A <em>lot</em> of duds before I met your father.”</p>
<p>“Steve’s not a <em>dud</em>,” Nancy protests, and then wishes she hadn’t. She’s not sure why she even still feels defensive of him. None of it had been real.</p>
<p>“Of course not, sweetie, but -” Nancy’s mom lets out a sigh. “Look, maybe it’s for the best. I don’t think that boy was a good influence on you.”</p>
<p>“What?” Nancy can’t help a disbelieving laugh. “Because I had him in my room – <em>with</em> Barb there? <em>Studying</em>?”</p>
<p>Nancy’s mom gives her a flat, knowing look. “I’m sure <em>studying</em> isn’t the only thing you two have been getting up to up here.”</p>
<p>“<em>Mom!</em>”</p>
<p>“<em>And</em> I don’t think anyone ever gets that upset with each other over chemistry homework.” Nancy’s mom shakes her head. “Boys will tell you all kinds of things, Nancy. You shouldn’t believe everything they say. You know they’re only interested in one thing, at your age.”</p>
<p>“It wasn’t – <em>like</em> that.” If Steve had really just wanted to sleep with her, Nancy thinks, he’d have kept the little fact that he can make people do things to himself. At least until he’d actually gotten what he wanted from her.</p>
<p>A little twinge of – something, not guilt but close to it, flickers through Nancy at the thought. At the memory of the way he’d looked at her on the night of the party, just before Barb had screamed. And the sad way he’d looked at her just before he’d left her room.</p>
<p>Nancy’s mom gives her a pitying look. Thankfully, though, before she can say anything more, from down in the hall, there’s the distinctive chime of the doorbell. Nancy’s mom rolls her eyes, shaking her head as she gets up from Nancy’s bed. “<em>What</em> is going on tonight? We haven’t had this many visitors since Halloween.”</p>
<p>Nancy follows her mother out into the hall and down the stairs. Staying in her room obviously isn’t going to get her out of this stupid talk, and she wants to see who’s at the door.</p>
<p>It isn’t anybody she knows. The older blonde woman in the doorway is wearing a professional-looking suit jacket and an apologetic smile. “Good evening,” she says, when Nancy’s mom swings open the door. “Connie Frazier. Sorry to bother you. I’m looking for my niece?”</p>
<p>Nancy’s dad looks up from his newspaper just long enough to ask, “Is this about this Eleanor kid again?”</p>
<p>“Ted,” Nancy’s mom says, sounding disappointed.</p>
<p>The woman in the doorway looks past Nancy’s mom, smiling in at Nancy’s dad. There’s something about that smile that’s just a little too satisfied. “Eleanor. Twelve years old? Short-cropped hair? It used to be so long, but there was an outbreak of lice at the school.” She shakes her head, with a soft chuckle, saying conspiratorially to Nancy’s mom, “You should have heard her cry when her mother had to shave it.”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry, I wouldn’t know. We haven’t actually ever met her,” Nancy’s mom says. Nancy’s not sure why there’s such a wary edge in her voice, but – it must be catching. She’s starting to feel uneasy herself, though she can’t put her finger on why.</p>
<p>The smile doesn’t change at all as the woman who’d introduced herself as Connie Frazier says, “Well, <em>we’ve</em> heard all about your son. Michael, right? It sounds like they’re thick as thieves.” Her smile fades into concern as she says, a little more serious, “Eleanor skipped school today and didn’t come home for dinner. We were hoping you might have seen her. Or know where she and her friends might have got to.”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Nancy’s mom repeats. “Mike’s been home all evening, and there’s no one else here.”</p>
<p>The woman in the doorway looks a little disappointed, putting her head on one side as she gives Nancy’s mom a thoughtful look. Nancy takes a step closer to her mom’s side.</p>
<p>“Look, if I can be honest,” the woman who’d called herself Connie Frazier says, lowering her voice and leaning a little closer in towards Nancy’s mom, “I’m worried about Eleanor. She’s a…troubled little girl. Likes to make up wild stories. She doesn’t mean any harm, she just likes the attention. It’s been worse since she and her mother moved in with me. You know it’s always hardest on the kids when families break up.”</p>
<p>“I really am sorry. I wish we could help you,” Nancy’s mom says.</p>
<p>“Of course. Maybe – do you think I could talk to Michael? Just for a minute?”</p>
<p>“Good luck. The cops couldn’t drag anything out of him,” Nancy’s dad says, not looking up from his paper this time. The look that the woman who’d called herself Connie Frazier turns on him is – <em>sharp</em>, somehow, before it slides quickly into worry.</p>
<p>“The <em>police</em> are looking for Eleanor? What’s this all about?”</p>
<p>“Something about some mischief downtown,” Nancy’s mom says. “You know small-town cops. They blame everything on kids.”</p>
<p>The woman who’d called herself Connie Frazier makes like she’s going to step into the house, but Nancy’s mom stands her ground in the doorway. There’s just the faintest flicker of anger in the worry in the woman’s voice as she says, “If the police are involved – I’ve really got to find her. I promise I won’t take more than five minutes of your son’s time.”</p>
<p>Nancy’s mom gives her a long look, and the woman who’d called herself Connie Frazier sighs and says, “I wouldn’t ask, but her poor mother’s worried sick. <em>Especially</em> with that missing boy turning up dead.”</p>
<p>Nancy’s mom looks at her for a few seconds longer. And then, she lets out a long breath and takes a step to the side. “Well, you can try, but I’m not sure Mike’s got anything more to tell you than I do.”</p>
<p>Nancy follows the woman who’d called herself Connie Frazier into the living room, sitting down across from her as Nancy’s mom calls up the stairs for Mike. The woman who’d called herself Connie Frazier catches Nancy’s eye, with a friendly smile, and Nancy suddenly feels a little bit silly about her suspicions.</p>
<p>“You must be Michael’s big sister,” Connie says, leaning forward in the armchair. “Has he ever said anything to <em>you</em> about Eleanor? Or – somewhere he might go, if he didn’t want to be found?”</p>
<p>“No,” Nancy apologises. “Mike and I – don’t really talk about that kind of stuff. Or about anything.”</p>
<p>Her dad turns another page in his paper. “We didn’t even know he <em>had</em> friends who don’t come around to take over our basement every weekend to play Demons and Dragons or whatever it’s called.”</p>
<p>Connie looks over at him, with a thoughtful smile. “Do you think any of those friends might know where Eleanor’s hiding?”</p>
<p>“Mike?” Nancy’s mom calls, again, and then sighs. “I’m sorry, he’s not listening. I’m going to have to go up and get him.”</p>
<p>She goes clattering up the stairs, calling Mike’s name.</p>
<p>And the phone rings.</p>
<p>Nancy looks, pointedly, at her dad, who turns another page in the paper and sinks even farther into becoming one with his chair.</p>
<p>“Sorry. I’ll just – get that,” Nancy says, to Connie, getting up and crossing the hall to the kitchen. She picks the phone up in the middle of a ring. “Wheeler residence, Nancy speaking.”</p>
<p>“Nancy?”</p>
<p>“Barb? What’s the matter, did you forget something?”</p>
<p>There’s an anxious note in Barb’s voice. Nancy isn’t sure why, but it’s not helping her shake off her earlier unease. “If anybody asks, yes. I left my jacket up in your room. You’re going to get it and bring it over to my house. Okay?”</p>
<p>“Okay, I can do that,” Nancy says. “Where did you leave it?”</p>
<p>“I didn’t. Not really.” That note of anxiety in Barb’s voice is stronger, now. “Nancy, you’re in danger. You <em>have</em> to get out of that house.”</p>
<p>Nancy doesn’t hear what Barb says next. There’s a weird oceanic roaring in her ears.</p>
<p>“Okay,” she says, and hopes her voice doesn’t sound faint, that her eyes haven’t gone wide, that she doesn’t look as chilled to the core as she feels. “I’ll be right over with your jacket.”</p>
<p>“I’ll sneak out and meet you on the corner with my car. <em>Hurry</em>.”</p>
<p>“See you soon,” Nancy says, as normally as she can manage, before putting the phone back in the cradle. She feels a little like everyone can see the conversation she’s just had printed across her face as she walks back to the foot of the stairs and the entrance to the living room. Like unless she’s very, very careful, they’ll be able to just look at her and <em>know</em>. “Dad? I have to run over to Barb’s real quick, she – she left her jacket when she was here earlier.”</p>
<p>Her father doesn’t acknowledge her words at all. The woman who’d called herself Connie Frazier meets her eyes as Nancy heads for the stairs, though, and Nancy doesn’t like the thoughtful way she looks at her at <em>all</em>. She flashes the woman a bright, fake smile, and then turns and has to force herself not to take the stairs two at a time to get away.</p>
<p>She should have asked Barb if the rest of her family are in danger. If <em>Nancy</em> is –</p>
<p>“Nancy!” her mom exclaims, nearly colliding with her as she goes around the turn. “Have you seen Mike? He’s not in his room.”</p>
<p>Nancy shrugs. “Try the basement? I’m sorry, I’ve got to run over to Barb’s. She left –”</p>
<p>“All right, just don’t be out too late,” her mother interrupts. “Back before nine, all right? It’s a school night.”</p>
<p>“…sure,” Nancy says. Usually, her mother wants to know every detail of where she’s going and why. But her mother doesn’t even look back, just hurrying down the stairs and off through the kitchen towards the basement door.</p>
<p>Nancy doesn’t dwell on it for long. She swings into her room, throws open her closet, grabs the first dark-blue article of clothing she can find, and balls it up under her arm.</p>
<p>For a second, she really considers taking Steve’s route and going out her window, just to keep from having to go by the living room under that woman’s thoughtful stare again. But it’d look more suspicious, now that she’s said she’s going out, for her to disappear upstairs and not be seen again. Like it or not, Nancy’s going to have to face the woman who’d called herself Connie Frazier one more time.</p>
<p>She wonders, as she starts down the stairs like a man walking up to the executioner’s block, if that’s the woman’s real name. What she’s after. What this ‘Eleanor’ kid’s done that’s got everyone so excited. How that connects to <em>Nancy</em>, how it puts <em>her</em> in danger when she hadn’t even known that Eleanor existed until twenty minutes ago.</p>
<p>Nancy steps around the turn, and stops dead on the landing.</p>
<p>The woman who’d called herself Connie Frazier is standing at the foot of the stairs.</p>
<p>When she looks up and sees Nancy, she smiles, broad and friendly. Nancy forces herself to smile back, to keep putting one foot in front of the other, like nothing’s wrong. “Sorry to leave you with only my dad. I know he’s a – charming conversational partner.”</p>
<p>The woman who’d called herself Connie Frazier huffs out a laugh, at that, her smile getting knowing. “I got that impression.” She doesn’t move to one side as Nancy comes to the foot of the stairs, blocking her way to the front door. “You’re really sure you don’t know anything that could help me find Eleanor.”</p>
<p>“I’m really sure,” Nancy says. She tries for sympathy, tries not to think about the two times she bothered to try out for the school play.</p>
<p>“If you did…you wouldn’t try to keep it from me, would you? I’m only trying to look out for her. She’s just a little girl, alone in a new and unfamiliar town.” Nancy’s not sure if she’s only imagining the edge of menace in the woman’s voice as she adds, “And we both know these woods can be dangerous after dark.”</p>
<p>Nancy looks her in the eye, and wills herself not to blink.</p>
<p>“I’m really sorry,” she says. “I hope you find her.” She holds up the bundle of blue fabric she’d tucked under her arm. “I really do have to get this to my friend, though.”</p>
<p>The woman who’d called herself Connie Frazier stares Nancy down, for a long moment.</p>
<p>And then she takes a step to the side, her friendly smile spreading back across her face. “All right. Sorry if I scared you. Her mother’s not the only one who’s worried sick.”</p>
<p>Nancy manages to muster up a flicker of a smile. She can’t think of anything to say to that. She’s too busy focusing on not bolting for the door as fast as she possibly can.</p>
<p>The short distance between the foot of the stairs and the front door feels like the farthest Nancy’s ever walked in her life. She can feel the woman’s eyes boring into her back the whole way, and it takes everything in her to keep her steps measured, her eyes ahead, not to look back over her shoulder. She’s probably walking too fast anyway. She’ll give herself away –</p>
<p>“Connie?”</p>
<p>Nancy’s never been so grateful to hear her mother’s voice. She looks back, to see the woman turn towards Nancy’s mom, who’s coming down the hall from the basement door with an apologetic look on her face. “I’m really sorry, Mike must have gone out. I can’t find him anywhere –”</p>
<p>Nancy throws the front door open and steals out while her mother’s still talking.</p>
<p>The night air is chilly and fresh and bracing, and the lawn feels open and inviting in front of her. Nancy does break into a run as soon as she shuts the door behind her, dashing across the lawn to the sidewalk. She makes herself slow to a normal walking pace as she starts for the corner, makes herself keep her eyes forward and her attention focused on the street ahead of her, even though she’s listening hard for the front door to open again, for the sound of the woman who’d called herself Connie Frazier’s voice.</p>
<p>As soon as she’s past the house, as soon as she knows she’s out of sight from the front door, Nancy breaks into a run again.</p>
<p>She doesn’t stop running until she hits the corner.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Lucas, it turns out, has borrowed Erica’s bike.</p>
<p>It’s little. It’s pink. It has glittery streamers coming from the handles. But it gets Mike and Lucas across town faster than walking would. Even if Mike <em>does</em> have to tuck his knees up around his ears.</p>
<p>Dustin’s mom is the one who opens the door. “Oh – boys. Isn’t it a little late for you to come over?”</p>
<p>“It’s not <em>that</em> late,” Mike says. Lucas elbows him in the ribs.</p>
<p>“Sorry, Mrs. Henderson. We’re just. Bereaved.” He blinks big, sad eyes up at Dustin’s mom. Mike stares at him for a second before catching on.</p>
<p>“Yeah. We just can’t handle the news. About Will. And we wanted to come see how Dustin was. Handling it. The news.”</p>
<p>Dustin’s mom presses a hand against her chest, and heaves a long, sympathetic sigh, like she’s the one who’s about to start crying. “Oh – oh. Boys, that’s so thoughtful of you. Come in, of course, come on in.”</p>
<p>Mike glances back over his shoulder as they file inside, but he doesn’t, thankfully, see the chief’s truck. The only vehicle moving in the street is a Power &amp; Light van a few houses down.</p>
<p>“Dusty? Your friends are here!” Dustin’s mom calls, as the door shuts behind Mike.</p>
<p>“What?” Dustin swings around the corner, eyes going wide and then narrowing in anger at the sight of Mike and Lucas. “Guys.”</p>
<p>“They came to see how you’re doing, with – with Will and everything,” Dustin’s mom says, and Dustin’s eyes narrow even further.</p>
<p>“Thanks, Mom. We’ll be in my room.” The way he’s glaring now, at both Mike and Lucas, doesn’t leave any room for argument.</p>
<p>“What the hell?” Dustin demands, as soon as he slams the door behind them. “I turned my walkie off for a <em>reason</em>.”</p>
<p>“Hopper’s on the warpath,” Mike blurts out as fast as he can. “He knows about El somehow, he knows we’ve been out looking for Will, he <em>came</em> to my <em>house</em> and he’s coming here as soon as he figures out Lucas isn’t home.”</p>
<p>Dustin turns wide, worried eyes on him. “<em>Shit</em>. I can’t have the cops come here looking for me! My mom’ll freak!”</p>
<p>“<em>Your</em> mom’ll freak? I’m a fugitive now! If I go home, I’m a dead man!” Lucas gestures dramatically with one arm. Mike leans back to avoid being smacked in the face. “Plus, Erica’s <em>never</em> going to let me live it down.”</p>
<p>All three of them shudder at the thought. Mike’s big sister is bad enough, but Lucas’ little sister is a force to be reckoned with. Mike’s just hoping that by the time Holly’s old enough to be that much of a brat, he’ll be big enough to just sit on her if she starts anything.</p>
<p>“We’re <em>all</em> in trouble,” Mike offers, as an olive branch. “Which is why we’ve got to stick together.”</p>
<p>Lucas and Dustin both shoot him looks that are nearly identical. Except that Dustin’s is more sad. And Lucas is mostly just pissed.</p>
<p>“Sure, Mike. Okay,” Dustin says, capitulating, and Mike flares up.</p>
<p>“No, it’s <em>not</em> okay. Everything’s wrong since Will went missing. And I was so busy worrying about him, and El, that I let things get weird with my best friends.” Mike waves, towards the room in general. “Look at us! We’re barely talking to each other! What would Will think, if he saw us now?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” Dustin says, with a sudden, sullen burst of resentment. “I can’t <em>read minds</em>. Or make things float. Or any other cool X-Men shit.” He crosses his arms and stares Mike down. “Which kind of seems like it’s the entry requirement to being your friend, Mike.”</p>
<p>“What? That’s bullshit.”</p>
<p>“No. <em>You’re</em> bullshit,” Lucas interjects, finally boiling over. “You want to talk about how we should all stick together and how we’re all friends? Maybe you should try actually treating us like it! You could start by <em>listening</em> when somebody tries to tell you you’re making a big mistake!”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Dustin says. “Or not keeping secrets from your <em>best friends</em>.”</p>
<p>Lucas spins to face him, throwing his head back and rolling his eyes with a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. “How many times, Dustin, I <em>don’t</em> have superpowers!”</p>
<p>Dustin just shakes his head.</p>
<p>“Look,” Mike says, suddenly fed up. “Lucas. You were right about El. I should’ve listened. And –” He takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>He sticks out a hand.</p>
<p>The look Lucas turns on it, then on Mike’s face, is heavy with suspicion. “You’re not going to make us go running to the weirdo’s rescue?”</p>
<p>“Not if it means either of you guys getting hurt. I mean, I want to know <em>why</em> – and if she really can help us with the Demogorgon –” Mike meets Lucas’ eyes, sees the goodwill he’d won slipping away, and sighs. “Look. I won’t – you guys come first, okay? I should have remembered that.”</p>
<p>“You’re just saying that because she nearly killed you,” Lucas says, eyeing Mike’s offered hand with a combination of longing and distrust.</p>
<p>Mike shakes his head. “Maybe! But if I’d listened to you from the start, I wouldn’t have had to get nearly killed to figure out something wasn’t right. I’m saying I should’ve trusted you, <em>because</em>, I should’ve trusted you. Okay?”</p>
<p>“…okay,” Lucas says, at last. But he doesn’t take Mike’s outstretched hand. “But I’m not shaking on it. Not until this stuff with Hopper’s over and the weirdo’s out of our lives. For <em>good</em>.”</p>
<p>“Fine,” Mike says, even though it’s not really fine.</p>
<p>Lucas nods, once, crossing his arms over his chest.</p>
<p>“And – Dustin,” Mike tries again, even though he knows it’s useless. “Look, we’re <em>not</em> lying to you. We wouldn’t lie to you. We’re your <em>friends</em>. But I don’t know how you want us to prove it.”</p>
<p>For just a second, he thinks Dustin’s just going to tell them that they can’t. To just get out. Not to bother trying.</p>
<p>And then Dustin takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders.</p>
<p>“You really want to prove it?” he asks, looking from Mike to Lucas. Mike nods enthusiastically. Lucas takes a second longer, but he nods too. “All right. Then tell me…one secret each. Something true, that you’ve never told anybody else.”</p>
<p>He must catch the wariness in the look Lucas turns on him, because he sighs and says, “No, it doesn’t <em>have</em> to be about <em>superpowers</em>.”</p>
<p>Lucas nods. And then looks thoughtful.</p>
<p>“Okay,” he says, after a moment. “Remember that time your mom’s cat got into your closet and peed all over your Monster Manual?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, and?”</p>
<p>Lucas winces. “I…might’ve left your door open after you told us to make sure it was shut?”</p>
<p>Dustin stares at him, stupefied, for a long moment.</p>
<p>“Son of a bitch,” he says, at last. “Well, you’re not lying about trying to hide superpowers from me. No way would you admit to <em>that</em> instead. Also, you’re buying me a new Monster Manual.”</p>
<p>“I already got my dad to photocopy mine for you!”</p>
<p>“Fine, then you’re paying for my games next time we go to the arcade.”</p>
<p>Lucas nods, and Dustin nods, and that seems to be that.</p>
<p>“Mike?” Dustin asks, turning to him. “Wanna share a secret?”</p>
<p>Mike looks back and forth between them, trying to think of something he hasn’t already told them. They’re his best friends. They share <em>everything</em>.</p>
<p>Only…maybe not quite everything.</p>
<p>“I think my parents are going to split up,” he says.</p>
<p>There’s a moment of quiet, as both Dustin and Lucas try to figure out how to respond to that.</p>
<p>“Have they…said anything?” Dustin asks, and Mike shrugs.</p>
<p>“I dunno. Not to me. More, it’s just – home feels <em>weird</em> lately. My mom’s always wanted my dad to care about her, about us, so bad, and most of the time he just… But it’s different lately. Just this last week. She’s been really scared and jumpy and secretive about something, and I think – I think maybe she’s actually going to do it. Maybe she’s actually leaving.”</p>
<p>Dustin and Lucas just look at him, for a long moment.</p>
<p>“Shit,” Dustin says, at last, heavily. “Mike, that sucks.”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Lucas agrees. Mike can almost <em>see</em> the pity rolling off them both, and he hates it. “Why didn’t you say anything?”</p>
<p>“Will was missing! And then everything got weird! And I don’t actually <em>know</em> anything!” He shakes his head, looking away from his friends so he doesn’t have to see their faces. “Neither of them ever tell me <em>anything</em>. So? Is that a good enough secret?”</p>
<p>“…yeah,” Dustin says, and if it doesn’t immediately wipe the pity off his face, at least they’re getting back on track. “Okay. Thanks, you guys. I believe you.”</p>
<p>For a split, shining second, Mike thinks maybe everything is going to be all right. That it’s going to get back to normal again. Or at least as close to normal as it can, right now.</p>
<p>Then Dustin spins around to point at Lucas. “I believe you’re not <em>trying</em> to hide having superpowers. But that doesn’t mean you <em>don’t</em> have them. Mike, you didn’t think Steve realised he had powers either, right?”</p>
<p>“Seriously?” Lucas demands. “We’re still doing this?”</p>
<p>“We’ve gotta at least test it,” Dustin says, which actually sounds pretty reasonable to Mike.</p>
<p>“No, we <em>don’t</em>!”</p>
<p>“Lucas. Come on. If you actually have superpowers, and you just never find out because you never try – that’d be like me being able to lick my own elbow and just never knowing. It’d be a total waste!”</p>
<p>“Dustin’s got a point,” Mike agrees. “How cool would it be if you <em>did</em> have some kind of powers?”</p>
<p>Lucas looks back and forth between them.</p>
<p>“You two are really buying this,” he says, in disbelief.</p>
<p>Mike shrugs. “It’s worth finding out. I mean, if El has powers, why not other people too?”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Dustin agrees. “What’re you so scared of?”</p>
<p>Lucas looks at both of them like they’re asking why he doesn’t want to eat toxic waste. “What am I – you guys both remember what happened to Gwen Stacy, right? Did you both miss the part where El with all her <em>cool powers </em>was running away from bad people? And said that they’d come and <em>kill us</em> if they found out she was there? Will’s already missing! And you’re seriously asking me what I’m scared of?”</p>
<p>Mike…hadn’t thought about it like that. And by the way Dustin frowns and nods, he hadn’t either.</p>
<p>“So, no,” Lucas says, firmly. “<em>No</em>. I don’t have superpowers. I don’t <em>want</em> to have superpowers. And I’m <em>not</em> testing it. Happy now?”</p>
<p>Before either Mike or Dustin can say anything more, though, there’s a muffled <em>knock knock knock</em> from somewhere outside of Dustin’s room, barely audible through the bedroom door.</p>
<p>“Oh, <em>shit,</em>” Dustin whispers.</p>
<p>“We gotta get out of here,” Lucas agrees, in an undertone. “Dustin. Back door?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, yeah, hang on, just –”</p>
<p>They ease the bedroom door open, peering out around the frame. The coast is clear – and then it’s not, as Dustin’s mom comes bustling down the hall towards the front door with a call of, “Coming!”</p>
<p>The Party duck back into Dustin’s room, exchanging worried glances. But Dustin’s mom doesn’t stop, doesn’t call for them, and after a moment, they risk peeking out around the door again.</p>
<p>Whoever’s at the front door isn’t visible from their vantage point. But the voice that they can hear doesn’t belong to Chief Hopper. “- reported outages around here. Have you noticed any power flickers or brownouts tonight?”</p>
<p>“It’s just the Power &amp; Light guys,” Mike breathes, wishing he felt more relieved. He’s so keyed up after everything that’s happened tonight that, even knowing they’re all right, he can’t quite relax. “I saw their van at the end of the street when we were coming in –”</p>
<p>“No. It’s not.”</p>
<p>Mike turns. Lucas is staring at Dustin’s mom’s back and the open door she’s standing beside, as tense as a guitar string and almost vibrating like one. Mike can’t tell if that’s fear, or anger, or some kind of combination of the two.</p>
<p>“What –” Dustin looks over at him. “Why would anybody lie about being from the <em>power company</em>?”</p>
<p>It hits Mike like a February snowball to the back of the head, heavy and dripping freezing slush down his spine. “The bad men.”</p>
<p>“She can’t let him in here,” Lucas whispers, with enough force that he spits a little, as the man at the door carries on, steady and professionally friendly and reassuring, about how he just needs to check the lines, test a few outlets. “She <em>can’t –</em>”</p>
<p>His hand curls into a fist. And, when Mike glances over, he sees a thread of blood creeping down over Lucas’ upper lip.</p>
<p>The voice from the unseen man at the door doesn’t change. It’s still steady and professionally friendly and reassuring. But what he’s <em>saying</em> definitely isn’t.</p>
<p>“Don’t worry. I won’t take long, and you’ll hardly even notice I’m here. I’m just looking for your son, and his friends if they’re here. They know something about the escaped subject, and we’re going to get it out of them by any means necessary.”</p>
<p>Dustin’s mom sounds like she can’t believe her ears. “I’m sorry?”</p>
<p>The man in the doorway goes on like he’s being perfectly reasonable and can’t understand why she isn’t responding the way he wants her to. “The escaped test subject? She’s much too valuable to lose. Obviously, it’s always regrettable whenever we have to have someone eliminated, but your son –”</p>
<p>“I’m calling the police,” Dustin’s mom says, with a sharp frightened jolt. “You – you stay away from my son!”</p>
<p>She slams the door on him, and the Party duck back into Dustin’s room again.</p>
<p>For a moment, nobody says anything. Lucas rubs away the trail of blood under his nose with a glare that dares either of the other two to say anything.</p>
<p>Dustin’s the first to break the silence. “Holy <em>shit</em>.”</p>
<p>“Do you think he even realised what he was saying?” Mike asks, glancing back at the door. “It kind of sounded like he didn’t –”</p>
<p>“How should I know?” Lucas snaps. “In case you weren’t listening, we’ve got a slightly bigger problem right now!”</p>
<p>“Back door,” Dustin agrees.</p>
<p>They ease the bedroom door open again, and quickly scan the hall before starting along it. From the living room, there’s the sound of a rotary phone wheel clicking, and somebody pressing the little switch in the cradle to hang up, over and over and over again.</p>
<p>“They must’ve cut the phone line,” Mike whispers, realisation dawning.</p>
<p>Dustin stops dead in the hallway. “That means – they planned for this.” His eyes are wide and horrified as he turns back to the other two. “They’ve gotta be watching the house.”</p>
<p>“Including the back door,” Lucas mutters grimly.</p>
<p>Mike turns to Dustin. “Isn’t there any other way out?”</p>
<p>Dustin shrugs. “Just the bedroom window, and they’d still see us from the front. <em>Shit!</em>”</p>
<p>The knock on the door makes them all jump. The voice that comes through it is muffled by the wood. “Mrs. Henderson? We don’t want to hurt anyone. This is all – a big misunderstanding.”</p>
<p>The Party exchange frightened glances.</p>
<p>And then, from the other side of the front door, there’s another voice. A voice that Mike hadn’t thought he’d be relieved to hear tonight. “Yeah, I <em>hope</em> nobody wants to hurt anyone. What’s going on here?”</p>
<p>“Hopper,” Mike sighs.</p>
<p>Dustin shoots a wary look at the door. “Think he’s in on it?”</p>
<p>Lucas narrows his eyes at the door, and then says, “No.”</p>
<p>“Great,” Mike says. “Lucas? I know you said you didn’t want to, but –”</p>
<p>“Way ahead of you,” Lucas says, turning back to the door.</p>
<p>And on the other side, the man who definitely doesn’t work for the power company’s explanation suddenly gets a lot more honest midsentence. “I really don’t know. She got very upset when I told her I’d have to come in and check the outlets and possibly torture her child if he doesn’t tell us where they’re hiding subject 011.”</p>
<p>“Hooooly shit,” Dustin breathes, into the moment of stunned silence. “Lucas? <em>Lucas</em>? That is stone cold bad <em>ass</em>.”</p>
<p>Lucas rolls his eyes. But he can’t totally hide the way the corner of his mouth turns upwards in a little pleased smile.</p>
<p>Mike keeps an eye on the door, listening hard to the rising voices on the other side.</p>
<p>“Dustin,” he says. “Remember that campaign you DMed for us? With the trolls and those mercenaries? Where we let them start a fight over who got to kill us and then snuck away?”</p>
<p>“Yeah?” Dustin meets Mike’s eye, and catches on. “Oh, <em>yeah</em>. Got you.”</p>
<p>Lucas nods his own understanding, and the three of them hurry down the hall and up to the front door, plastering themselves against the wall to wait for their chance.</p>
<p>On the other side of the door, the chief’s voice has gone low and careful and deliberate, like he’s worried, if he lets loose that tight thread of anger underneath it, he’ll break whatever spell this is. “Okay. Okay, tell me – who sent you to find these kids? Who’re you working for?”</p>
<p>Lucas winces, pressing a hand to his head. “Ow – okay, if he didn’t know what he was saying before, he sure does now. And he <em>doesn’t</em> want to.”</p>
<p>Mike nods. “Okay. Get ready.”</p>
<p>Outside, the man who is definitely not from the power company is sputtering and choking on the words forcing their way out of him, fighting a losing battle to swallow them back down. Mike thinks, briefly, of that weird tension between Lucas and El, how even her powers hadn’t been enough to stop the truth from coming out for long, and feels very briefly sorry for the guy out on the doorstep. “Lab – the lab, I – no, that’s not – it’s all on Brenner’s orders, I just do what I’m told!”</p>
<p>There’s a grim satisfaction in Hopper’s voice as he says, “<em>Thought</em> so. Well. When you go crawling back there empty-handed, you can tell that smug sonuvabitch that Jim Hopper sends his regards –”</p>
<p>There’s a little metallic sound, and then a sudden, surprised silence.</p>
<p>“I might not be able to lie to you,” the man who definitely isn’t from the power company says, in a voice that’s got no trace of professional friendliness or reassurance left in it, “but that doesn’t mean I can’t hurt you. And I will, if I have to. Subject 011 is too valuable, and you…are expendable. And annoying.”</p>
<p>The voice goes friendly again, syrupy-sweet. Mike’s skin crawls. “<em>Or</em>. You can turn around and go back to the station and forget all about this. What did you really see here tonight, anyway? A power company employee telling you all about a conspiracy that there’s absolutely no evidence for? Just <em>how</em> sure are you about what you heard? And how likely is it that anybody else would believe you?”</p>
<p>In the quiet that follows, Mike realises he’s holding his breath. The other two look as scared as he feels.</p>
<p>Then, so fast that they’re almost overtop of each other, there’s a startled shout, an explosion of sound that Mike takes a second to identify as a gunshot, and a heavy, meaty <em>thump</em>.</p>
<p>Mike feels sick. But they really aren’t going to get a better distraction. He waves furiously towards the door –</p>
<p>Which swings open, nearly beaning him in the face, to reveal a glowering Hopper. Mike doesn’t see any sign of the man who definitely doesn’t work for the power company.</p>
<p>“<em>You</em> three,” the chief growls, though there’s relief underneath his anger.</p>
<p>“Scatter!” Dustin yells, and they do.</p>
<p>All three boys take off in different directions. Dustin and Lucas both go right, out the door, while Mike lunges left – and nearly trips over the legs of a big, dark-haired guy in blue coveralls, sprawled out unconscious across the carport concrete. There’s a heavy black handgun lying a little out of reach of his outflung hand. Suddenly, Mike’s mental image of what had just happened outside the door is a whole lot different.</p>
<p>He starts to bolt. But Mike’s never been much of an athlete, even when he’s not injured. For the <em>third</em> time tonight, somebody grabs him by the arm and pulls him up short.</p>
<p>“Hey. Kid. Not so fast.”</p>
<p>Mike tries to pull free, kicking and flailing with absolutely no result. If anything, Hopper’s grip on his arm just gets tighter. “That goes for you two, too,” he says, to Dustin and Lucas, who’ve frozen in indecision at the sight of a Party member captured. “Where d’you think you’re going?”</p>
<p>He doesn’t wait for their stammers to turn into an answer, just takes two steps forward and crouches to scoop up the gun the man who definitely doesn’t work for the power company had dropped, dragging Mike along with him. “You don’t think there might be more of these goons hanging around?”</p>
<p>He takes in the frantic looks Mike and Lucas and Dustin are throwing back and forth between themselves, and sighs. “I’m on your side here, okay? Now come on. Let’s get the hell out of here.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Byers’ little house is right out on the outskirts of town, past even the trailer park, practically in the DoE lab’s backyard. It’s creepy out here in the dark. So still. So quiet.</p>
<p>That’s the only reason why Nancy jumps when Jonathan Byers swings the front door open while her fist is still raised to knock. She’s just on edge from the dark and the quiet. That’s all.</p>
<p>“Nancy,” Jonathan says, like he’s not surprised to see her but – maybe didn’t expect her so soon. “And Barbara.” One of his eyebrows goes up, the faintest shadow of a smirk crossing his face as he says, “You just found me too irresistible to go a day without seeing me, huh?”</p>
<p>It’s not the attitude Nancy would’ve expected from somebody who’s grieving. But then, they are kind of butting in on –</p>
<p>“Will’s not dead,” Jonathan says, giving Nancy a look that seems to see through to the back of her skull. “You two should come inside.”</p>
<p>Nancy’s mother raised her better than to outright ask what the heck happened to the Byers’ living room. Thankfully, Jonathan tactfully pretends he doesn’t notice her double-take at the lights, the paint, the torn wallpaper. “Mom? You know Nancy Wheeler, right? And this is her friend Barbara. She’s the other one who saw the monster.”</p>
<p>Barb grimaces. “Yep. That’s my claim to fame.”</p>
<p>Mrs. Byers says something reassuring-sounding, but Nancy isn’t listening. She’s just registered the <em>other</em> person in the room, folded into an armchair like he’s hoping he won’t be noticed.</p>
<p>“<em>Steve?</em>” she demands, and Steve visibly winces, dropping the bag of frozen peas he’d been holding to one swollen eye.</p>
<p>“Nancy.” He doesn’t make eye contact. He also doesn’t sound happy.</p>
<p>“What are <em>you</em> doing here?” Nancy takes in the sight of him, and adds, “What happened to your <em>face</em>?”</p>
<p>Steve opens his mouth, but Jonathan cuts him off. “He defended both of your honour. And it sounds like you’re all here for the same reasons.”</p>
<p>He looks back and forth between Barb and Nancy, then says, almost like it’s an apology, “I just read minds. I don’t have all the answers.”</p>
<p>It’s so simple. So matter-of-fact. So <em>crazy</em>. No way Nancy would have believed him – a week ago.</p>
<p>Now, though, she’s surprised to find herself accepting it without question. Sure. Jonathan Byers reads minds. It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing about this week.</p>
<p>If Nancy had had any doubts, the way Jonathan’s mouth quirks up like he’s trying not to smile a second after that thought crosses her mind would have chased them away.</p>
<p>“It’s okay,” Mrs. Byers says, into the apprehensive look Barb shoots her way. “It’s – I know.”</p>
<p>Jonathan huffs out something that’s almost a laugh. “And trust me, she can keep a secret.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, I should – go,” Steve says, pushing himself up out of the armchair and making for the hall. Nancy’s standing in his way, though, and he sort of drifts to a stop, giving her a pleading look. Nancy wonders if he’s also thinking about the way he’d made her step aside back in her bedroom.</p>
<p>“No,” she says, making up her mind in that instant. “Stay. I think we all need to talk.”</p>
<p>Steve glances over at Jonathan, then back at Nancy, before he answers. There’s something bitterly resigned in his voice. “Dunno what there is to talk about.”</p>
<p>“Psychic powers,” Barb says, at the same time as Mrs. Byers says, “The monster.”</p>
<p>Jonathan adds, “Oh, and a conspiracy that might make you disappear if you mention that talent of yours to the wrong people.”</p>
<p>There’s a sarcastic edge in his voice, but he’s not smiling. For some reason, Nancy thinks of what he’d said on the doorstep, just before he’d let them in. “Is that what you think happened to Will?”</p>
<p>It’s not Jonathan who answers her, though, but his mom. For once, there’s no waver, no trace of uncertainty in her voice or the fierce expression that takes over her sweet face. “The body – that <em>thing</em> they pulled out of the quarry was a fake. Will is <em>alive</em>.”</p>
<p>For a moment, nobody says anything. Nancy’s got a million questions, but she doesn’t have the faintest idea of where to even start asking.</p>
<p>“Okay,” Jonathan says, finally, breaking the silence. “Sit down. Get comfortable. We might as well tell you what we know.”</p>
<p>Nancy doesn’t, in the end, sit down <em>or</em> get comfortable. She ends up standing, leaning against the doorway, while Barb plants herself on the couch beside Mrs. Byers, on the opposite side from Jonathan. Steve drops back into the armchair like he’s trying to pretend he never got up in the first place. Maybe he thinks if he doesn’t move, Nancy won’t notice he’s there.</p>
<p>The story Jonathan and his mom lay out is one of the most unbelievable things Nancy’s ever heard. And she <em>wouldn’t</em> believe it, if she hadn’t seen the photo. Hadn’t known Barb all these years. Hadn’t been on the receiving end of Steve’s…whatever. Hadn’t had that – <em>woman</em> turn up at –</p>
<p>“Somebody came to our house,” Nancy says, interrupting Mrs. Byers’ explanation about Terry Ives’ lost daughter. “After the chief left. Looking for that girl. Eleanor, or – Jane, or whoever.”</p>
<p>Barb’s eyes go wide behind her glasses. “<em>Nancy</em>. I <em>told</em> you you were in danger!”</p>
<p>Nancy shakes her head. “But she wasn’t looking for me. She just wanted to talk to Mike.”</p>
<p>Mrs. Byers gives Nancy another long, thoughtful look, like Nancy’s a puzzle piece she’s trying to make fit into the bigger picture. “Do you…<em>can</em> you…”</p>
<p>Nancy takes a second to catch on. “What? Oh! No, no, I’m not…” She barely bites back <em>I’m normal</em>, tries not to wince at the way Jonathan studiously doesn’t look at her face. “I’m not.”</p>
<p>“Really?” Mrs. Byers frowns at her for a moment longer. “Have – have Mike, or Holly, ever - ?”</p>
<p>Nancy shakes her head. “I’m sorry. I really don’t think so. <em>I’ve</em> never noticed anything…” She fumbles, for a moment, lands on, “<em>special</em> about any of us.”</p>
<p>“You didn’t notice Steve putting the whammy on you either,” Barb points out, maybe a little too much like she’s gloating. Nancy braces herself for whatever Steve’s going to come back with, but – he just glowers silently at the coffee table. Nancy has to remind herself sharply that Barb’s right. She never <em>really</em> felt anything for him. There’s no reason for her to be feeling sorry for him now, for her to want to comfort him. Even if she wasn’t terrible at being comforting.</p>
<p>“You really are,” Jonathan says. Nancy sucks in a sharp, insulted breath, before she realises he’s smiling. It’s a nice smile, small and teasing as it is. She’d kind of noticed at the library, but – he’s a whole lot less intimidating when he smiles.</p>
<p>“Why –” Nancy has to pause to collect her thoughts again, get back the thread of the conversation that everyone’s part of. “Why did you ask if Mike or Holly –”</p>
<p>“Nothing. Nothing,” Mrs. Byers repeats, with a thoughtful frown. “Just – something your mother said, when she was here the other day. Holly got into Will’s room, and – and the wall, she said she saw –”</p>
<p>“’There’s a reason we don’t talk about it’,” Jonathan says, like he’s quoting, catching his mother’s eye. “<em>That’s</em> what that was about? You think Mrs. Wheeler <em>knows</em>?”</p>
<p>Mrs. Byers shrugs, her head bobbing like a startled pigeon. “I don’t – I thought it might, might make sense. If Nancy or her siblings –”</p>
<p>Nancy shakes her head. “But we’re <em>not</em>.”</p>
<p>“Maybe she’s in on it,” Steve says, and Nancy starts. He’s been so uncharacteristically quiet, she’d sort of figured he didn’t have anything to add. There’s just something – a kind of indelible <em>normality</em> about Steve. Nancy hadn’t expected him to be taking any of this seriously. She’d sort of figured he’d been sitting there humouring her, not <em>really </em>believing a word of it, thinking about what a kick Tommy and Carol will get out of it all when he tells them at school tomorrow. <em>Hey, guess what? Turns out Byers is even more of a freak than we thought…</em> “This – conspiracy, or whatever. Or maybe – maybe it’s <em>her</em>. Maybe she’s the one with –”</p>
<p>He looks up from the coffee table and half-shrugs, saying it like he knows what it must sound like, like he’s laughing at himself and inviting them all to join in. “You know. <em>Powers</em>.”</p>
<p>Barb shakes her head, pushing her glasses up her nose. “I don’t think so. Think about it. You, me, and Jonathan, Will, the chief’s daughter, and this Jane Ives – what’ve we all got in common?”</p>
<p>She doesn’t wait for anyone else to answer. “None of us are any older than nineteen. Nancy’s mom wouldn’t fit the pattern.”</p>
<p>“Unless it runs in families,” Steve says, looking over at Mrs. Byers, who shakes her head.</p>
<p>“Not unless Lonnie’s been keeping some – <em>very</em> big secrets from us.”</p>
<p>Something – okay, a <em>lot</em> of things – still aren’t quite adding up. Nancy can’t help but feel a little like she’s blindfolded, trying to puzzle out what the thing in front of her is by touch alone. Like she’s missing that piece of essential information that would let her see that what she thinks is a vacuum hose is really the trunk of an enormous, unseen elephant.</p>
<p>“I know,” Jonathan agrees, catching her eye. This time, Nancy manages not to start. It’s surprising how quickly she’s getting used to him answering before she speaks. And if that isn’t a sign of how weird her life is all of a sudden, then Nancy doesn’t know what is. “I mean, it all almost fits together, but only if you take the monster out of the picture.”</p>
<p>“Which you shouldn’t,” Barb says, matter-of-factly. “Because if nobody does anything about the monster, you’re never going to see your little brother again.”</p>
<p>The mix of fear and hope that bursts across Mrs. Byers’ face is almost painful to look at. “Will?” She leans forward in her seat, towards Barb, her dark eyes as big as Nancy’s ever seen them. “Do you – <em>know</em> something? Can you see something?”</p>
<p>“We’ve been trying to contact him all evening,” Jonathan adds, and if he’s got more restraint than his mom, it’s still obvious by the way he bites at his lower lip and squeezes one hand tight with the other that he’s just as tense as she is, just as full of nervous anticipation. “No luck. Mom was worried something might have – happened.”</p>
<p>Nancy takes in the look on his face, and thinks that Jonathan’s mom wasn’t the only one who was worried. Nancy wonders if she’d be that strong, that rock-steady, for <em>her</em> mother if it were Mike or Holly who’d disappeared to God knows where. If she’d be able to put her own feelings on hold for someone else that way.</p>
<p>“Barb?” she asks. “This – you wanted to ask about that, right? If there’s a way to make it happen? Force a –” The word sticks in Nancy’s throat, and she has to laugh it out. “Vision?”</p>
<p>“<em>Nancy</em>. I told you, they’re not <em>visions</em>. And <em>you</em> were the one who wanted to know how to force them.” Barb’s smile fades as she turns from Nancy back to Mrs. Byers, who’s still sitting forward on the very edge of the couch cushion, hanging on her every word. “But Nancy’s right. If there’s a way – I mean, I can’t tell you what’s happening to Will right now. But, maybe, I could tell you if there’s still a way you can get him back?”</p>
<p>Mrs. Byers’ hands dart out to clasp both of Barb’s before she even seems to realise she’s moving. Her eyes search back and forth across Barb’s face like she’s looking for answers written there. “Can you? <em>Would</em> you?”</p>
<p>“I mean, I <em>would</em>,” Barb says, with a slightly helpless glance in Nancy’s direction. “I don’t – really – know how, though –”</p>
<p>“I do.”</p>
<p>Nancy actually looks over at Jonathan, before realising that hadn’t been his voice.</p>
<p>Steve straightens up in the armchair. There’s – <em>something</em> in his face, something Nancy might call resolve, or determination, although for some weird reason, she thinks there’s a little relief mixed in there too. “Jonathan, man, can you – show them?”</p>
<p>Jonathan nods, before turning a questioning look in Barb’s direction. For the first time, she looks a little nervous. But she nods back.</p>
<p>For a moment, Nancy thinks nothing’s happening. It just seems like Barb and Jonathan are having a staring contest. Although – there <em>is</em> a strange intensity, a kind of tension. If Nancy didn’t know what was going on, she wonders if she’d think they were about to fight. Or kiss.</p>
<p>And then a little bead of blood creeps down from Jonathan’s nose, and Barb sucks in a sharp breath, her eyes going wide.</p>
<p>“<em>Oh</em>,” she says, a slow smile spreading across her face. “Oh, that’s <em>cool</em>.”</p>
<p>And then she shuts her eyes.</p>
<p>It’s still not showy. There aren’t any pyrotechnics. There’s just that tension, a faint hum so low and so quiet that Nancy feels it more than hears it.</p>
<p>She’s interested to see that Barb’s nose starts to bleed, too, a second before her eyes snap open again. It’s hard to tell behind the lenses of her glasses, but Nancy thinks her pupils look a lot wider than they had before she’d closed her eyes.</p>
<p>Those eyes don’t focus on anyone or anything in the room, turning to stare into the middle distance in the general direction of the wall with the alphabet daubed on it. Nancy wonders if she’s actually seeing it, if she’s seeing anything in the room at all. Or if she’s just concentrating so hard on something <em>else</em> that she’s forgotten about sight completely for the moment.</p>
<p>“…huh,” Barb says, with a little amazement in it, after a moment of expectant silence. “Wow<em>.</em>”</p>
<p>Mrs. Byers reaches out, then pulls her hands back, like she’s not sure if she can touch Barb without breaking the spell. She grips her own knees like she’d rather be gripping Barb’s arm, pursing her lips as she rocks forward in her seat. The look she fixes on Barb’s face is so heavy with apprehension and hope that it’s almost painful just to see. “What, what is it? What are you seeing?”</p>
<p>“Not – <em>seeing</em>,” Barb repeats, with a little edge of annoyance, before the wonder creeps back in. “It’s – he’s alive. Will’s alive.”</p>
<p>Mrs. Byers gives a little sobbing gasp, raising a shaking hand to her chest as she crumples inwards. “Oh God – <em>Will</em>.”</p>
<p>“And – you can still bring him home,” Barb says, still staring at the middle distance. She doesn’t seem to notice the blood running down over her upper lip at all. “<em>Wow</em>, it’s like – Nancy, remember those Choose Your Own Adventure books? Remember how you always read them front to back first so you knew how to get the ‘good’ endings?”</p>
<p>“How?” Mrs. Byers demands, and this time she does actually reach out and grasp Barb by the arm, searching her face. “What – what do we need to do? To bring Will home?”</p>
<p>Nancy risks a look over at Jonathan, and quickly has to look away again. He’s usually so closed-off, so defensive. Seeing this much emotion on his face feels like an invasion of his privacy.</p>
<p>Looking away, though, means Nancy accidentally catches Steve’s eye. He gives her a little smile, like he’s silently commiserating with her, about being mostly useless here on the sidelines. Nancy holds his gaze for a moment, biting her bottom lip as she considers.</p>
<p>When she smiles back, his grin grows wider, and a little relieved, before he turns his attention back to Barb.</p>
<p>Barb’s eyes flick back and forth, like she’s – reading text printed on the thin air a foot in front of her face, or tracking something moving that nobody else can see.</p>
<p>“The lab,” she says, at last.</p>
<p>“The Department of Energy lab?” Jonathan asks, and Barb nods. She’s bleeding, hard, from both nostrils now, and her voice goes muffled when she presses her sleeve against her face.</p>
<p>“Every way goes through it. If you want to get Will back, you have to get into the lab.” She pulls her sleeve away, making a face at the bloody mess left there. “Does anybody have a tissue, or –”</p>
<p>There’s not enough warning. The Christmas lights strung around the room all blink, once, with an electrical buzz. Jonathan winces, pressing a hand to his head.</p>
<p>And a huge, grey shape unfolds up behind Barb, one twisted arm reaching out –</p>
<p>“<em>Barb!</em>” Nancy shouts, scrambling across the room towards her. Barb’s head snaps up at the sound of Nancy’s yell, the mad rainbow flicker of the Christmas lights reflecting in the lenses of her glasses.</p>
<p>Nancy doesn’t make it to her in time. But Mrs. Byers’ grip tightens on Barb’s arm at Nancy’s shout, and she pulls Barb to her feet, leaving that taloned hand to swipe through empty air.</p>
<p>The boys are both on their feet now, too, joining the little huddle in the middle of the living room. The – the <em>monster</em> is so much bigger in real life than Nancy had expected it to be. And when its whole – its whole <em>face</em> splits into five fanged petals and it <em>roars</em> –</p>
<p>Nancy casts around for a weapon, but there’s nothing in reach that looks like it would do any damage. The monster’s prowling out between them and the exit into the hallway, tensing itself to leap –</p>
<p>“Back door!” Jonathan yells, pointing. “Through the kitchen, <em>go!</em>”</p>
<p>Nancy doesn’t need to be told twice.</p>
<p>She grabs Barb’s hand as they run, through the wildly flickering lights. The monster’s horrible grinding, shrieking growl comes close on their heels, and Nancy risks a glance back over her shoulder – just in time to see Steve wave his arms, shouting into its splayed-open face. Distracting it, Nancy realises. But he doesn’t have a weapon any more than they do, and that <em>thing</em> isn’t going to listen to persuasion –</p>
<p>“Nancy!” Barb shouts, as Nancy pulls away from her. Nancy doesn’t listen. They’ve made it into the kitchen, and she throws open drawer after drawer until she finds the knives. “What are you <em>doing?</em>”</p>
<p>Nancy pauses just long enough to look back at her. “Do you still have all our stuff in your trunk?”</p>
<p>“Of course, I -”</p>
<p>“Great! Get out of here and go get it, okay?”</p>
<p>Mrs. Byers gives Nancy a horrified look. “Nancy – you’re not -”</p>
<p>“Going back there?” Nancy flashes them both a smile. “I’ll be fine. Barb, you’d know if I was in danger, right? We’ll meet you around the front. Go!”</p>
<p>She pulls a serrated breadknife and a foot-long carving knife out of the drawer, and then, without looking back, charges back into the living room.</p>
<p>There’s an enormous <em>crash</em> as she does, and Nancy jumps. It takes her a moment, in the strobing lights, to figure out what she’s seeing. Steve and Jonathan have toppled a heavy wooden cabinet on top of the monster, which bellows in what Nancy thinks sounds more like frustration than pain. There are three new gashes drooling blood down Steve’s left cheek, like those claws had grazed him, and there’s something clear and slimy shining across Jonathan’s face just under his right eye and staining his shirt dark, but neither of them look seriously hurt.</p>
<p>“Nancy,” Jonathan says, a slow, small smile crossing his face as he turns to look at her.</p>
<p>“Nancy?” Steve echoes, looking up.</p>
<p>There’s a second <em>crash</em> as the cabinet collides with the floor. Nancy starts, but manages not to jump this time. There’s a glassy popping sound, and the Christmas lights all go dark at once, the warm lights of the lamps buzzing back up to a steady yellow glow.</p>
<p>“What’s going on?” Nancy asks, skirting the fallen cabinet as she hurries over to join the boys. Jonathan holds out a hand, and she passes one of the knives off to him. The monster’s not the kind of thing she really wants to get close enough to try to stab with a kitchen knife, but – the knives are better than nothing.</p>
<p>“Where’d it go?” Steve asks, staring at the cabinet that had, until a moment ago, had a monster pinned under it. “Where <em>is</em> it?”</p>
<p>“Gone,” Jonathan says, looking around at the lights. “I don’t hear it anymore.”</p>
<p>“Just like in the pool,” Steve says, like it’s just dawning on him.</p>
<p>“What, so it just – disappears?” Nancy grips the breadknife tighter, turning slowly so her back is to Jonathan’s. She really doesn’t like how exposed she suddenly feels. “And appears out of – what, thin air?”</p>
<p>“My mom saw it come out of the wall,” Jonathan says, behind her.</p>
<p>“That doesn’t make any sense. Where does it come <em>from</em>? Where does it go when it disappears? It has to go <em>some</em>where -”</p>
<p>The lights buzz, and flicker. Nancy’s breath catches in her throat. Steve straightens up from the cabinet and the patch of slime he’d been inspecting, with an apprehensive look around, as the Christmas lights start to flicker again.</p>
<p>“It’s coming back,” Jonathan says, with another wince. “God, it’s like nails on a blackboard -”</p>
<p>“Nancy,” Steve says, firmly, turning to look her in the eye and holding out a hand, “give me the knife and get out of here.”</p>
<p>Nancy tightens her grip on the knife, and stands her ground. “I’m not leaving you alone with that – <em>thing</em>. <em>Either</em> of you.”</p>
<p>She thinks the boys are both going to argue, but it’s then that all the lights go out.</p>
<p>Nancy freezes in place, in the sudden darkness, blinking furiously as she tries to get her eyes to adjust. This is a trap. It’s a trap, an ambush, and she’s blind, a sitting duck –</p>
<p>“Where is it?” she demands, in a voice that sounds a little shrill even to herself, turning in a slow circle, careful of the knife she knows Jonathan’s holding. “It’s here, it’s here – where <em>is</em> it!”</p>
<p>She’s not expecting Jonathan to actually <em>answer</em>. “Nancy! Behind you!”</p>
<p>Nancy spins –</p>
<p>The monster’s huge, taloned hand slams into her shoulder just below her collarbone with a blow like a lightning bolt, knocking her off her feet. If she hadn’t turned, she thinks, it might have taken her head clean off her shoulders. The breadknife goes clattering out of her grip as she hits the floor, the air bursting from her lungs on impact. Her arm burns, and her head throbs, a pressure building behind her eyes. She struggles to suck in a breath.</p>
<p>The monster crouches over her, the lights bursting back to wildly-flickering life around it, that twisted blank of a face peeling open into fleshy petals studded with hundreds and hundreds of gleaming little white teeth -</p>
<p>Nancy’s lungs inflate, at last, and she lets the breath out in a scream, throwing up a hand to protect her face –</p>
<p>There’s a feeling like her sinuses have just popped, the pressure in her head clearing, and a sudden explosion of sound. Nancy could have sworn someone just fired a pistol directly in her ear.</p>
<p>And the monster stumbles back, a hole appearing in the concrete-grey skin of its barrel chest.</p>
<p>As Nancy watches, the wound – almost perfectly circular – starts to ooze something black and viscous that, she thinks, must be its blood. Its petal-face flares wide and agitated, another one of those shrieking roars wrenching out of it.</p>
<p>Nancy licks her lips, and tastes copper.</p>
<p>She’s shaking, she realises, as she sits up, trying to get her feet under her. The monster growls, and lunges forward, and Nancy throws out her hand again. This time, the scream is as much rage as fear.</p>
<p>There’s another pulse of pressure behind her eyes, and another <em>bang!</em>, and one of the monster’s petals explodes in a shower of black goo. It whines, high and shocked, like an animal in pain.</p>
<p>Nancy pushes herself to her feet. Her heart is hammering, her knees are watery, her shoulder where the monster had hit her is starting to throb, but the arm she extends towards the monster is steady as a rock as she takes aim.</p>
<p>Before she can do anything, though, the lights flicker out again. When the lamps buzz back to steady life, Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve are alone in the wreckage of Jonathan’s living room.</p>
<p>Nancy lowers her outstretched arm. Her shoulder is <em>really</em> starting to throb, now, hot and painful. It’s the only part of her that feels warm.</p>
<p>When she looks down, to see if she’s been cut, blood drips from her nose and spatters her pale blue blouse. A drop splashes off of the gold ballet-slipper charm her parents gave her for her twelfth birthday, pooling garish and red in the hollows inside of the slippers.</p>
<p>“Nancy,” Steve says, breaking the shocked silence. “You -?” There’s something hurt in his voice, and Nancy has to stuff down a laugh. If she starts laughing now, she’ll never stop. “And you didn’t <em>tell</em> me?”</p>
<p>“She didn’t <em>know</em>,” Jonathan says. “Just like you.” Nancy thinks the warm, broad hand that settles on her unhurt shoulder belongs to him, but she can’t seem to make herself look away from the blood to check. “Nancy? Are you all right? Stupid question, I know, of course you’re not all right -”</p>
<p>“That thing got her in the shoulder pretty good,” Steve says, worry overtaking the shadow of hurt in his voice. “I – she should have some, some ice on it or something -”</p>
<p>The sound of a scream from somewhere outside breaks whatever cocoon of shock Nancy’s been wrapping around herself. Her head snaps up before she even knows she means to move. Beside her, she can feel Jonathan go tense.</p>
<p>“Mom,” he says, at the same time as Nancy says, “Barb -”</p>
<p>And then all three of them are running for the door.</p>
<p>By the time they get outside, though, it’s already too late. The trunk of Barb’s little car is standing open, the box of monster-hunting gear sitting inside. The bear trap is sitting on the gravel beside it, like Barb had just set it down before going back for something else. The acetylene torch is gone.</p>
<p>The yard light throws Mrs. Byers’ shadow ahead of her as she turns at the sound of the front door opening, as she runs to Jonathan, rubbing his upper arms and patting his shoulders as she looks him over. “Oh, Jonathan – are you hurt? Is everybody okay?”</p>
<p>“We’re fine, Mom, are you -”</p>
<p>“I tried, I – there wasn’t time – it <em>took</em> her, Jonathan, one second she was there and, and then – she was just <em>gone -</em>”</p>
<p>Nancy looks out past her, over the lawn, searching, even though the yawning pit in her stomach already knows what she’ll see.</p>
<p>There’s nobody else out there.</p>
<p>Barb is gone.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Eggos are almost all gone when she hears it.</p>
<p>She knows where she’s heard that clunk-rattle-rumble sound before. The white rooms had no windows. Seeing <em>outside</em> is new. (Papa always said the pictures in the books were of things that were <em>outside</em>. She never knew whether to believe him.) But the dark room was so very dark. So silent. So lonely. She got very good at listening.</p>
<p>She follows. Through the trees, out of sight.</p>
<p>The sound comes from a white box of a van. With blue writing. <em>Hawkins Power &amp; Light</em>.</p>
<p>It turns across the end of a road, and stops. She ducks quick behind a tree. Out of sight. But no one comes. No white coats, no uniforms. No one chases. No one yells. She peers out again.</p>
<p>The van waits, watching. She watches the van and waits.</p>
<p>And down the road, fast and screeching, comes another van. No – not van – <em>truck</em>. Brown and yellow-white. Friendlier colours than white and blue.</p>
<p>It skids and stops before it hits the van waiting at the end of the road. She watches two more vans roll along the road behind it. Nowhere to go.</p>
<p>She thinks of the halls between the white rooms. They tricked her like this, once. When she wouldn’t go in the bath. When she bit, and ran.</p>
<p>Papa had left her alone in the dark for so long, after that. She hadn’t bit again.</p>
<p>But it hadn’t been the last time she’d run.</p>
<p>She runs now. To a closer tree, and then the corner of a house. No one is coming for her. Yet. She wants to see. Know who else the bad men want to catch.</p>
<p>The truck moves again. Slow, then faster. The van doesn’t.</p>
<p>But there is no crash. The truck goes off the road, up on the grass patches in front of the houses. The van moves, now, too late. The truck goes around. Dirt and grass spray up. A figurine of a small man in a pointy hat goes flying.</p>
<p>The truck is coming, now, right towards her hiding place.</p>
<p>She turns and runs.</p>
<p>There is no hope of hiding, now. The vans come after the truck. If she hasn’t been seen yet, she will soon. All there is to do now is run.</p>
<p>She expects the shout. She does not expect the voice.</p>
<p>“<em>El!</em>”</p>
<p>She almost stops. Does look back over her shoulder.</p>
<p>It <em>is</em>. It’s Mike.</p>
<p>Mike, leaning his head out the truck’s window. His friends beside him. Calling her – her <em>name</em>. “El! There she is, it’s her – <em>El!</em> Eleven! Wait!”</p>
<p>She can’t. The vans are coming fast. She runs between the houses, where cars and trucks and vans can’t follow. Back into the trees.</p>
<p>Mike’s voice can follow, though. And it does. Even when she puts her hands over her ears.</p>
<p>She runs.</p>
<p>She runs, and runs. Through the trees, out of sight. The vans. They came from the bad place. She heard that engine there. If they find her – if they <em>catch</em> her – they will take her back.</p>
<p>If they catch Mike, they will put a hole in his head. Like the nice man with the <em>ice cream</em>. Or worse. They’ll take him too.</p>
<p>His voice comes back to her, and she slows, and stops. At the house, with the monster. For his friend.</p>
<p>
  <em>Whatever’s in there that’s so scary…I can’t leave him in there with it, alone.</em>
</p>
<p>Friends don’t lie. She broke that rule from the very start. So she can’t be Mike’s friend.</p>
<p>But…she still <em>wants</em> to be.</p>
<p>And friends don’t leave each other with the scary thing, alone.</p>
<p>She takes a deep breath. In, then out.</p>
<p>And turns around.</p>
<p>She follows the sound of the van. The ground rises, and she climbs, up to another road. There are no houses, here. Just trees.</p>
<p>She sees the truck, coming fast. She sees the vans coming just as fast behind it.</p>
<p>And she hears a new sound.</p>
<p>She looks the other way along the road. Doesn’t see it. Until she looks up.</p>
<p>There was a picture of a <em>helicopter</em>, in one of the books Papa brought, once. When she was good. She never thought it would be so <em>loud</em>. Or so big. And when Papa said it flew, she thought high up in the air. Not so close above the road.</p>
<p>It hangs in the air like she was holding it there. Still. Facing the truck coming down the road.</p>
<p>Nowhere to go.</p>
<p>Unless –</p>
<p>She’s never moved anything as big as the helicopter before. Or as heavy. But she tore open the world. She let the monster in.</p>
<p>The helicopter is nothing.</p>
<p>There’s an explosive <em>bang</em> and a <em>crash</em>. It takes Jonathan a moment to realise it’s not in the memory of the helicopter flipping end-over-end through the air, over Hopper’s truck and into the Power &amp; Light vans chasing it. He looks up from the silent, wide-eyed girl with the shaved head, sees Nancy’s face crumpling with disappointment. That’s the seventh bottle or can she’s tried to levitate and ended up just blowing holes through instead.</p>
<p>“It might not <em>be</em> telekinesis,” Jonathan offers, over his little brother’s friends’ exuberant retelling of their narrow escape. Nancy looks up, startled, her immediate anger quickly softening as he says, “You might just only be able to make things explode.”</p>
<p>Nancy glowers at him, but there’s a part of her that’s trying not to laugh. She thinks – she thinks it’d be betraying her friend, somehow, to find anything funny right now.</p>
<p>“- and then El -”</p>
<p>“- and the helicopter just -”</p>
<p>“- it was <em>awesome</em>, she just stared at it and – <em>boom!</em>”</p>
<p>Jonathan’s mom is doing an impressive job of trying to pay attention to the boys’ enthusiastic explanation, but they’re all talking over each other and out of order. Jonathan wouldn’t need to read her mind, just the helpless look she turns to Hopper, to know she’s hopelessly confused.</p>
<p>Hopper, thankfully, exercises his usual economy of language. “The kid – El – saved all our asses. But they know she’s with us, now, and they know which way we were heading. We shouldn’t stick around here too long.” He looks around, his eyes settling briefly on Nancy, Nancy’s bloody nose, and Steve, before saying, “Looks like I missed a few developments back here, too.”</p>
<p>Nancy looks him dead in the eye, and, without breaking eye contact, raises a hand. Across the room, a mug standing by the sink shatters.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” she says, like it’s a challenge. “I’d say so.”</p>
<p>Dustin Henderson elbows Lucas Sinclair in the ribs, with a gesture in Nancy’s direction. “<em>Nosebleed</em>.”</p>
<p>Lucas shoves him, and Dustin shoves back.</p>
<p>“You never told me you could do that!” Mike Wheeler complains, ignoring them both in favour of scowling at his big sister.</p>
<p>Nancy bobs her head in his direction, her eyebrows going up. “<em>Mom</em> didn’t tell <em>either</em> of us.” She fixes him with an intent stare, before asking, “Can <em>you -</em>”</p>
<p>“No! Why does everybody keep thinking I have secret superpowers?”</p>
<p>“Maybe because apparently <em>everybody</em> else does,” Steve mutters. He’s not as grouchy as he sounds, though. He’s been sitting watching Nancy’s single-minded exploration of her newfound power with something close to reverence, and he’s mostly just annoyed that she’s been interrupted. Jonathan can’t say with total honesty that he can’t relate. There’s just something about Nancy’s focus, her determination, her <em>passion</em>. And how unexpectedly well she’s taking to violent destruction. If only everyone was safe and they had time, he could easily spend an afternoon just watching her figure out what she can do.</p>
<p>But everyone’s not safe. And the way Nancy shakes her head, what she says next, is a sharp reminder. “We’re wasting time. None of this is helping Barb.”</p>
<p>She catches Hopper’s confused frown, and explains, “That monster took her. We’ve got to get her back.”</p>
<p>It occurs to Jonathan and his mom both, at the same time as the question takes shape in Hopper’s head, that between revealing all their secrets and unravelling a conspiracy and trying to chase down Terry Ives’ long-lost daughter, they might have forgotten to mention the monster. “<em>What</em> monster?”</p>
<p>Jonathan’s surprised when all three of his brother’s friends flash on a memory that looks an awful lot like the monster coming through <em>his</em> living room wall.</p>
<p>“The Demogorgon,” Dustin says. There’s something almost awed about the way he says it.</p>
<p>“The <em>what?</em>”</p>
<p>“It’s from Dungeons &amp; Dragons,” Mike says, which does not help. “Well. The name is. The monster isn’t.”</p>
<p>“We got monsters now too?” Hopper grumbles, but Jonathan isn’t paying any attention anymore. The girl – Jane Ives, Eleanor, Eleven, <em>El</em> – remembers the monster too. But not just in Jonathan’s living room.</p>
<p>“Where <em>does</em> it come from?” he asks her, and she looks up at him like – like she can tell he’s listening.</p>
<p>Her voice is soft, but sure. “Upside down.”</p>
<p>And Jonathan’s in the dark.</p>
<p>It takes him a moment to realise it’s a memory. Not his. It’s so much more vivid than anything he’s ever seen or heard before. It really feels like he’s <em>there</em>.</p>
<p>Wherever…<em>there</em> is.</p>
<p>Because – it’s weird, but – <em>there</em> feels like…<em>nowhere</em>. Like nothing. There’s only darkness, and faint warmth, and silence. He can’t even really tell which way is up. Where the limits of his body are. It feels like he’s dissolving into the dark.</p>
<p>And…there’s <em>something</em> out there with him.</p>
<p>Jonathan snaps back to reality, breathing hard, to Dustin Henderson saying something about a vale of shadows and the girl’s big eyes boring into his. The smallest of smiles starts, slowly, to spread across her face.</p>
<p>There’s no fluency to the way she uses words, understands them – they’re rocks jutting up through the stream of feelings and images and associations that are her thoughts. Jonathan thinks that she’s grateful, relieved, to have finally found someone she can communicate with in the language she’s most comfortable with. Someone she can tell the things she <em>needs</em> to say but doesn’t have the words for.</p>
<p>For a moment, Jonathan’s reminded of one-sided conversations with Will, of silent understandings, and misses his brother with an ache so sudden and fierce that it nearly knocks him off his feet.</p>
<p>He’s so careful as he kneels down in front of the girl, moving slow, trying not to startle her. She watches him, not taking her eyes from his for a second. She doesn’t seem scared. Just – unsure.</p>
<p>“The monster,” Jonathan starts, trying to sort through everything he wants to ask, needs to know. “You said – your memory, you – you thought you let it in.”</p>
<p> - <em>white tile, screaming</em> –</p>
<p>“Do you know what happened to Will?” Jonathan asks, before he can talk himself out of it, before he can consider that he might not like the answer. “Do you know where he is?”</p>
<p>The girl keeps that penetrating look fixed on his face. Deciding whether she can trust him. Whether he’ll hate her, too, once he knows the truth.</p>
<p>But at last, she nods her head. Just once. “Yes.”</p>
<p>Jonathan hears his mother, behind him, swallow down a gasp. She’s alight, abuzz, with fear and hope, an unspooling reel of possibilities whirling nightmare-fast around her head. But for once, Jonathan doesn’t – can’t – go to comfort her, talk her down.</p>
<p>He can’t look away from the girl.</p>
<p>His voice barely cracks as he says, “Show me.”</p>
<p>And she does.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s Will’s big brother who ends up explaining everything. Everything he – heard, or saw, or <em>felt</em>, or <em>whatever</em>, from inside El’s head.</p>
<p>Because, oh yeah. Apparently Jonathan can read minds. And Nancy can blow stuff up with hers. <em>And</em> Nancy’s best friend knows the future, and that douchebag Steve Harrington can mess with people’s heads, and Lucas can make people tell the truth, and even <em>Will’s</em> static charge…<em>thing</em> was some kind of superpower all along.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry I doubted you,” Mike says, to Dustin. “Apparently everybody in this stupid town <em>does</em> have secret psychic powers.”</p>
<p>“Not <em>everybody</em>,” Nancy says. “And no adults. Yet. That we know of.”</p>
<p>“Right. Because that makes it <em>so</em> much better.”</p>
<p>“Don’t worry, buddy,” Dustin says, giving Mike a pat on the shoulder that is obviously meant to be reassuring. “We’ll start our own two-man sidekick club.”</p>
<p>“Dustin, no offense, but if my choices are between being <em>Steve’s</em> sidekick and death, I’m picking death.”</p>
<p>“Hey,” Steve says, like he’s offended, but he obviously doesn’t actually care so Mike ignores him. Like he would have done anyway.</p>
<p>El sits on the couch silently watching them, as Jonathan explains. The lab. The doctors. The man who called himself her <em>Papa</em>. The tests. The bath.</p>
<p>The darkness.</p>
<p>Reaching out. And something reaching <em>back</em>.</p>
<p>El doesn’t say a word. And the look on her face doesn’t change, no matter how horrified or disgusted or furious or heartbroken everyone else gets, hearing what’s happened to her. She doesn’t look away from Lucas, from Dustin, from Mike. And for once, she’s impossibly easy to read.</p>
<p>Jonathan runs out of words eventually. He looks over at El, like he thinks she’s going to say something for herself.</p>
<p>But she doesn’t. She just watches the Party. Watches <em>Mike</em>.</p>
<p>Waiting, perfectly still, perfectly silent, in a snarl of fear and resignation and bitter, bitter hope.</p>
<p>Mike can’t stand the silence. “Why didn’t you <em>tell</em> us about any of this?”</p>
<p>There’s none of the pleading Mike’s used to in the look El turns on him, none of that silent request to read her mind and understand. Maybe because somebody already has. All that’s left now is a kind of miserable resignation. “It’s all my fault. I’m the monster.”</p>
<p>Will’s mom starts to sputter at that, and there’s a flutter of upset from the grown-ups and teenagers in the room. But surprisingly, it’s Lucas who speaks up first, his voice unexpectedly gentle. “That’s not true.”</p>
<p>El startles, a little, giving him a searching look, like she’s trying to work out what he isn’t saying. “No?”</p>
<p>“What? Of course it isn’t!” Mike plants himself on the couch next to her so that he can put a hand on her shoulder, look her right in the eye. Willing her to understand and believe how much he means it, how much no one is mad at her. “You saved us from the bad men. You tried to help us find Will. They hurt you, they made you do it, and you still tried to help make it right.”</p>
<p>“That’s the least monster-y thing I’ve ever heard of anybody doing,” Dustin agrees.</p>
<p>“You’re…not a traitor,” Lucas offers. “I get it now. You wanted to keep us safe. If I’d known, I never would have said any of that stuff. I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>There’s something painfully open in the look El turns on him, like she’s forgotten what hope feels like and remembering is cracking her wide. “Friends don’t lie. I’m sorry too.”</p>
<p>Dustin looks back and forth between them, and there’s nothing painful about <em>his</em> hope. “So…we’re friends again?”</p>
<p>El’s eyes are huger than normal and her smile as she nods is wobbly, but it’s real. Her voice is cracked and barely audible as she turns to look at Lucas again. “Friends?”</p>
<p>“Friends,” Lucas agrees.</p>
<p>“Friends,” Mike says, pulling El towards him, and El wraps her arms around him.</p>
<p>A heartbeat passes, and then Dustin plops down on the couch beside them, throwing his arms around them both. After a second, Lucas rolls his eyes, and gives El’s back a few pats, with a token grumble. Dustin rolls <em>his</em> eyes and grabs Lucas by the arm, and Lucas yelps as he gets dragged down into the pile.</p>
<p>“All <em>right</em>,” Hopper says, a burr of impatience in it. “We still got a missing kid, a monster, and the government on our asses. Can this Kodak moment wait?”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Steve says, with a glance over at Nancy. “And – Nancy, your friend.”</p>
<p>Nancy nods, biting on her lower lip. “Barb said that, to get Will back, we have to go through the lab. That gate thing that – Eleven – opened must still be open.”</p>
<p>“All right,” Hopper says, settling his hands on his belt. “Well, that’s somewhere to start.”</p>
<p>He starts towards the door, and Will’s mom starts sputtering again, although this time it’s with indignation. “<em>Where</em> do you think you’re going? We – we don’t even know where Will <em>is</em>, yet!”</p>
<p>“The Vale of Shadows is as big as the material plane,” Dustin agrees. “Narrowing it down to another dimension…doesn’t really narrow it down.”</p>
<p>El gives Mike a long look, before turning to the adults. “I can find them.”</p>
<p>“Are – are you sure?” Will’s mom asks, worried. Mike’s surprised. He would’ve expected her to jump at the offer.</p>
<p>Maybe she’s still thinking about everything Jonathan’s just told them, too.</p>
<p>“You don’t have to,” Will’s mom goes on, crouching down so she can look El in the eye, reaching out both hands to grip one of El’s between them. “If – nobody’s going to make you. If it’s too scary, or too hard, or if you just don’t want to -”</p>
<p>El looks Will’s mom back in the eye, unafraid. Her voice is perfectly even and perfectly steady as she repeats, “I can find them.”</p>
<p>Will’s mom looks like she might cry. She gives El’s hand a shake and a squeeze. “Thank you. <em>Thank</em> you. And – I will be right here, with you, the whole time. The <em>whole</em> time. Okay?”</p>
<p>El nods. “Okay.”</p>
<p>Jonathan comes up with a photo of Barbara, sitting on a diving board. The Party turn Will’s room upside down and find his walkie. El sits down with them laid out in front of her on the kitchen table, and closes her eyes.</p>
<p>The lamp overhead flickers, once, twice.</p>
<p>And, in the expectant hush as everyone watches El and waits, there’s a sound. A thrumming.</p>
<p>For a second, Mike thinks it’s El’s powers. Then he realises – it’s coming from outside the house. And it’s getting louder.</p>
<p>“What -” he starts to say.</p>
<p>El’s eyes snap open. There’s fear in her eyes, in her voice, as she says, “<em>Helicopter</em>.”</p>
<p>Everything happens very fast, after that. A helicopter flying over Will’s house isn’t usual. Which means it’s the government guys. Which means they’ve seen Hopper’s truck parked in Will’s drive. Which means there’s no more time. They have to find a new place to hide. Or, as Steve so annoyingly puts it, they have to quit playing defense and switch to offense.</p>
<p>Mike hates sports metaphors almost as much as he hates sports, but even he has to grudgingly admit Steve’s got a point. If everybody at the lab thinks they’re trying to hide El, they won’t be expecting anybody to try to go <em>back</em> to the place she got away from. And if they’re all out looking for El, if they’re coming to the Byers’ house to get her, then there’ll be less of them watching the lab. There won’t be a better chance to get inside.</p>
<p>There’s just one thing Mike doesn’t like about this plan. Well. Two things. He doesn’t like the idea of taking El anywhere near that place, ever again. And he doesn’t like that they still don’t know where exactly Will and Nancy’s friend are. But El’s still drained from flipping the helicopter, and they don’t have time to sit around and let her recharge. There isn’t even time to let her escape to the bathroom to be upset in private, although Mike feels really bad about that. They have to get her <em>out</em> of here.</p>
<p>The chief’s brilliant plan is that he will go to the lab, get Will, and bring him back. Mike’s put more thought into single turns in D&amp;D. Luckily, that ‘plan’ lasts for all of five seconds before people start poking holes in it.</p>
<p>“I am <em>going</em> with you,” Will’s mom insists, over Hopper’s protests that it isn’t safe, that somebody needs to look out for the kids, that he at least knows what he’s getting into, <em>Joyce</em> – “He’s <em>my</em> son.”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Nancy agrees, crossing her arms over her chest as she draws up beside Will’s mom. And Mike knows that’s it for Hopper. When Nancy digs her heels in, Nancy <em>digs her heels in</em>. “And Barbara’s <em>my</em> friend. I’m going to get her back.”</p>
<p>“Wh- <em>no</em>. Joyce – fine, but I am <em>not</em> taking a <em>teenager -</em>”</p>
<p>Nancy narrows her eyes, and a perfectly-circular hole blows itself through the brim of Hopper’s hat. “I can take care of <em>myself</em>.”</p>
<p>She ignores the wide-eyed shock her little stunt causes. “I can help, okay? Besides, if you try to leave me here, I’m just going to follow you anyway. So you might as well take me with you.”</p>
<p>“Nancy’s got a point,” Jonathan says, with a look in her direction that makes Mike want to gag. Sure, Will’s big brother is way less of a douchebag than <em>Steve</em>, but having <em>one</em> guy all soppy over her’s already made Nancy insufferable enough. Mike doesn’t think he can handle her with <em>two</em>. “We’re no safer here than we would be there. And at least <em>there</em>, we’d be able to help. Strength in numbers, right?”</p>
<p>“Whoa, no. There is no <em>we</em> here,” Hopper growls, and Will’s mom shakes her head.</p>
<p>“Jonathan – I don’t want you anywhere <em>near</em> that place, do you hear me?”</p>
<p>“Will’s my brother,” Jonathan argues back. “And – do any of <em>you</em> know where the gate is? How to get there once you’re inside? Unless you’re planning on bringing Eleven with you, or just wandering around until you run into it by accident -”</p>
<p>Based on the look on Hopper’s face, Mike guesses that that’s exactly what he’d been planning to do.</p>
<p>“I could help, too,” Steve chimes in, and Mike’s amazed to realise he’s actually <em>worried</em> about the other two. “Talk our way in, or – or whatever.”</p>
<p>“No. <em>No.</em> What part of <em>I am not taking a teenager to raid a top-secret government facility -</em>”</p>
<p>“If everybody else is going, we should go too,” Mike argues, and Lucas nods.</p>
<p>“Will’s our best friend. A party member requires assistance!”</p>
<p>“You <em>don’t</em> split the party unless you want to get picked off one by one,” Dustin agrees. “Is that what you want? For us to get picked off one by one?”</p>
<p>The chief just stares at all of them like he can’t believe this is his life.</p>
<p>“Okay,” he says. “Joyce, you two, with me. Harrington, you really wanna make yourself useful? Get these four twerps somewhere safe. And make sure they <em>stay</em> there.”</p>
<p>Everybody starts to complain at once. But the sound of engines outside cuts the argument short.</p>
<p>It’s a mad scramble out the back door, across the yard, and into the woods. Somehow, as they run, El’s hand ends up clasped in Mike’s. It makes it easier to pull her along after Dustin and Lucas towards Castle Byers, so Mike doesn’t let go. Plus, she seems a little less scared when he gives her hand a squeeze, shooting him a smile as he pulls the curtain-door closed to hide them from view.</p>
<p>She’s still pretty scared, though. They all are.</p>
<p>It feels <em>wrong</em>, somehow, to let <em>Steve</em> into Castle Byers. Like – like inviting Gollum into Minas Tirith. Also, he’s too tall to stand up inside, and nearly knocks part of the roof down trying. The only consolation Mike has is that Steve seems almost as resentful about being left with them as the Party are about being left with <em>him</em>.</p>
<p>“I should be going with them,” he grumbles, under his breath, peering out between the branches that make up the walls. So far, nobody’s come this far into the woods after them, but it’s really only a matter of time. Castle Byers isn’t going to hide them forever. “I’m not a <em>babysitter</em>.”</p>
<p>“We should <em>all</em> be going with them,” Lucas agrees.</p>
<p>“We’ve got to keep El safe,” Mike argues, and Lucas rolls his eyes.</p>
<p>“<em>Obviously</em> we’ve got to keep El safe. But how are you suggesting we do that, Mike? It’s not like we’ve got anywhere safe to go. They know who we are. They came to Dustin’s <em>house</em>. We can’t go home.”</p>
<p>Dustin nods, slowly, like what Lucas is thinking is starting to dawn on him too. “Steve said it. The best defense is a good offense.”</p>
<p>“I did?” Steve looks around at them. “Oh, yeah, I guess I did.”</p>
<p>“This isn’t some stupid sports game,” Mike protests. “We could all <em>die</em>!”</p>
<p>“Mike,” Dustin says. “A party member. Is in need. Of <em>assistance</em>.”</p>
<p>“But El -”</p>
<p>“Why don’t we ask <em>her</em>?” Lucas interrupts. “El? What’s your vote? Do you want to keep hiding? Or do we follow the chief and Mrs. Byers and <em>stop</em> the bad men once and for all?”</p>
<p>“Hey, that’s not fair!” Mike turns to El, as well, catching her wide-eyed gaze. “You don’t have to go back there. Nobody’s going to make you. We won’t be upset if you just want to find somewhere safe to go. Okay?”</p>
<p>El gives him a long, long look. She’s still scared, Mike can tell. But – something else, too.</p>
<p>“Nowhere is safe,” she says, at last, quiet but clear. “Friends don’t leave friends behind.”</p>
<p>“El,” Mike says, but he knows even as he asks what the answer’s going to be. “Are you sure?”</p>
<p>El nods, once. “I want to fight.”</p>
<p>“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Steve says, looking them all over. “Look, I don’t have to be a babysitter to know it’s a bad idea to let a bunch of kids go storm a government facility.”</p>
<p>“Who’s <em>letting</em> us do anything?” Mike snaps, before remembering he’s supposed to be the voice of reason here. Oh well. All his friends are in, anyway.</p>
<p>“You can come with us, or you can stay here,” Lucas agrees. “But you’re <em>not</em> stopping us.”</p>
<p>“Yes, I <em>am</em>, because I don’t want all of your parents to <em>kill me</em> when this is over -”</p>
<p>“Oh, and if you try any funny business on us, El will make your brain melt out your nose,” Dustin warns Steve, matter-of-fact, before glancing back over his shoulder at El. “You can do that, right? Just say yes even if you can’t, he won’t know.”</p>
<p>Steve’s still giving them that look. Mike can’t believe he’s actually going to be stubborn about this.</p>
<p>“Look,” he says to Steve. “You come with us, you help us get inside, you can go save Nancy from government goons or whatever and steal her back from Jonathan Byers. That’s what you want, right?”</p>
<p>The look Steve turns on Mike is somehow even more disbelieving than before, but Mike’s pretty sure he’s swaying. “Of course not, that’s – why would you even think – they aren’t even -” He stops, like he’s just had a horrible realisation. “They <em>aren’t</em>, right?”</p>
<p>Mike shrugs one shoulder. “Depends on what happens in that lab.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, well, it’s not going to look so good for me if I get her shithead little brother killed, either, is it?”</p>
<p>“That’s why you should come <em>with</em> us,” Lucas says, like it should be obvious. He shoots a glare at Dustin, who nods enthusiastically and beams.</p>
<p>Steve doesn’t move, and the how-is-this-my-life face he’s making doesn’t change, but his eyes flick between them, from one face to the other.</p>
<p>Then he looks up at El.</p>
<p>El, who meets his eyes with a steady, fearless gaze. El, who Mike’s seen resist other people’s powers. El, who robbed a grocery store and flipped a helicopter and probably <em>could</em> make your brain melt out your nose, if she wanted.</p>
<p>El, who Steve couldn’t stop if he tried.</p>
<p>By the huff of breath Steve lets out and the way he presses a hand to his forehead, he knows it, too. “Fine. Fine! You really wanna do this?” he asks El, who nods, twice, even though she’s clearly getting more scared now that it’s getting closer to real. “Even though it’s <em>crazy</em>, and you’re a bunch of <em>kids</em>, and we’re all definitely gonna die?”</p>
<p>“We’re not going to <em>die</em>,” Lucas says, like it should be obvious. “We’ve got the monster-killer.”</p>
<p>Steve stares at him, and cocks an eyebrow in question. Lucas goes rummaging in his jacket pockets, and proudly pulls out his faithful wrist-rocket.</p>
<p>Steve shuts his eyes.</p>
<p>“We’re all gonna die,” he says.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>what a week, huh</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The fence that wraps around the DoE lab’s property is eight feet high if it’s an inch, and topped with huge coils of razor wire. Joyce looks at it, and feels something inside her wilt. If this is how they’ve got the very edges of their huge property sealed off, what might be waiting inside?</p>
<p>“All right,” Hopper says. “I’ve got some bolt cutters back at the station -”</p>
<p>Nancy Wheeler glares at the fence, and throws out a hand like she’s trying to push the air away from her. There’s a sound like a firecracker going off, and a perfect circle of chain-link about the size of a manhole cover goes blasting out of the middle of the fence and clatters to the ground with a metallic jangle.</p>
<p>“Or that works too,” Hopper concedes.</p>
<p>Nancy sways a little on her feet, and Jonathan catches her elbow, steadying her. “Nancy, you might want to save some of that for once we get inside -”</p>
<p>Nancy shakes him off, swiping the back of one hand under her nose as she marches straight for the fence. “I’m fine. Barb’s not. Let’s <em>go</em>.”</p>
<p>At this hour of the night, there’s only one guard on duty at the front entrance of the massive building that houses the lab. He starts as they walk up, one hand going to the gun holstered on his belt. “Who -”</p>
<p>Jonathan reaches out without looking and pushes Nancy’s raised arm back down to her side. He meets the guard’s eyes, with a look of mild concentration, and the guard frowns, like he’d forgotten what he’d been about to ask. He stands there, looking puzzled, and doesn’t try to stop them as they hurry around him and through the doors.</p>
<p>“What -” Joyce starts to ask, as they start down one of the hallways, and Jonathan looks back over his shoulder to flash her a smile.</p>
<p>“The last thing he remembers right now is getting ready for bed. He thinks he’s dreaming.”</p>
<p>“That won’t last long,” Nancy says, but she sounds impressed.</p>
<p>Jonathan nods. “But it doesn’t need to. We’re inside, aren’t we?” He points. “This way.”</p>
<p>The halls are seemingly endless. With the lights dimmed for nighttime, only every third fluorescent lit, the place is cast in an eerie twilight. Wood panelling abruptly gives way to white tile. There are no windows. Joyce tries to imagine a child growing up in this sterile, lifeless warren of a building. She fails.</p>
<p>But, unimaginable as it seems, a child <em>did</em>. And maybe more than one. After all, the number tattooed on that poor girl’s wrist – like she’s a, a piece of inventory, not a human being – is <em>011</em>, not <em>001</em>.</p>
<p>That could have been Jonathan. That could have been <em>Will</em> –</p>
<p>Hopper hangs back a little as they come up on a door sealed behind plastic, marked with a huge biohazard sign. His hand is warm, solid, grounding, on Joyce’s shoulder. “Hey. You all right?”</p>
<p>Joyce fixes him with a look. “Are <em>you</em>?” Her boys <em>could</em> have ended up in a place like this. As far as they know, Sara actually <em>did</em>.</p>
<p>Joyce doesn’t get an answer. Not that she was really expecting one. Hopper just casts a grim look at the plastic Nancy’s unzipping. “Be better once we’re out of here -”</p>
<p>“Don’t move.”</p>
<p>Joyce starts at the unfamiliar, unexpected voice. The balding man in the ugly brown three-piece suit who’s leading two armed guards down the hall towards them looks entirely too satisfied with himself. “Did you think the security cameras were just there for decoration?”</p>
<p>Hopper lets out a sigh, shoulders slumping as he turns to face the guards and raises both hands, palms out, a gesture of surrender. Joyce glances over, and copies him. Out of the corner of her eye, she catches Nancy straightening up, stepping closer to Jonathan.</p>
<p>“All right,” Hopper says, all low and reasonable. “You got us. We can talk about this, right?”</p>
<p>“Oh, you’re going to,” three-piece says, with a little smile that Joyce doesn’t like the looks of at all. His eyes settle on Jonathan, and that little smile gets a little wider, a little more sinister. “I’m especially interested in what you’ve got to say about how you got past Charlie -”</p>
<p><em>Get ready to run</em>.</p>
<p>Joyce just has time to realise the thought didn’t come from her own mind when Nancy’s eyes flick up to the light above them. It explodes, with a flash and a shower of sparks, plunging the hall into darkness.</p>
<p>Joyce is still blinking afterimages out of her eyes when a hand closes over her wrist and pulls her into a stumbling run, down the hall away from three-piece’s shouted orders. She and Hopper skid around a corner, pelt down another, still-lighted hall, and scramble to turn back the way they came at the sound of footsteps approaching the other end of the hall.</p>
<p>Joyce throws herself at the nearest door, twisting the handle frantically to see if it’ll open. She gives it two rattles before moving on to the next one. On the other side of the hall, she can hear Hopper doing the same thing.</p>
<p>He furiously gestures her over when one of the doors does clunk open. Joyce doesn’t waste a second, dashing across the hall and into the dark room on the other side. Hopper follows her, swinging the door almost all the way closed and then easing it shut the final inch in careful, deliberate silence. The faint metallic <em>snick</em> when he turns the lock sounds blaringly loud to Joyce’s ears.</p>
<p>They stand in the dark, pressed close against the door, listening, as footsteps stomp down the hall outside. They meet another set of footsteps just outside the door Joyce and Hopper are hiding behind, and there’s an agonising shouting match about where they went before the doorknob starts to rattle.</p>
<p>Joyce catches her breath, and holds it.</p>
<p>In the silence, in the stillness, in the dark, she can <em>feel</em> more than see or hear Hopper next to her, the warm solid shape of him every bit as tense as she is. Just waiting for the lock to turn, for the door to fly open, for it all to be over.</p>
<p>Joyce wishes she at least knew what happened to Jonathan and Nancy. Whether they got away, or if they’re even now being shoved into windowless little cells, locked up until they can be drugged and hooked up to machines to read their brainwaves, or dropped into lightless tanks of salt water, or, or cut into little pieces, brains sliced up and stuck under microscopes to try to find out what makes them <em>special</em> –</p>
<p>Joyce nearly cries out when a hand closes over hers, first in terror, then in relief. She grips Hopper’s hand as hard as she possibly can, and doesn’t let go until the door handle gives one final rattle and the footsteps walk away.</p>
<p>There’s a little more muffled conversation from the other side of the door, and then the footsteps split up again, tapping away along the hall in either direction. More doorknobs rattle. Joyce lets out the breath she’s been holding, feeling like every ounce of strength in her is going with it. She can barely keep herself upright without leaning heavily against the door.</p>
<p>She reaches out to unlock it, only for Hopper’s hand to close over hers again, stopping her. Joyce’s eyes must be adjusting to the light leaking in around the door, because she can see when he raises a finger to his lips, the universal signal for quiet.</p>
<p>Joyce freezes, listening hard for any sound from out in the hall. She doesn’t hear anything. But – whoever had tried the door hadn’t seemed to hear <em>them</em> hiding in here, either.</p>
<p>She catches Hopper’s eye, and mouths ‘<em>trap?</em>’ as obviously as she can. He squints at her in obvious confusion, and Joyce sighs and gestures him closer so she can whisper. In that moment, she’s terribly envious of Jonathan. “<em>Think it’s a trap?</em>”</p>
<p>Hopper nods, straightening up. “<em>Wait</em>.”</p>
<p>The last thing Joyce wants to do is wait. <em>Both </em>of her boys are out there, now, in danger –</p>
<p>“<em>Joyce</em>.”</p>
<p>Joyce bites her bottom lip, and turns her back on the door, trying to remove the temptation to just charge back out there.</p>
<p>Now that her eyes have adjusted a little, she’s able to make out more of the room than just shadows. It’s not very big. Most of what space there is is taken up with rows of shelves, stacked with files. It probably wasn’t meant to have been left unlocked.</p>
<p>She hugs her arms as she considers the shelves. Most of the files have three letters stickered to their outer edges. The one Joyce pulls down and thumbs through looks like a personnel file. The three letters are the first three letters of the last name.</p>
<p>Most of the files have three letters. But there’s one shelf that has three numbers, instead. <em>001</em> through <em>011</em>.</p>
<p>“Hop,” Joyce says, forgetting she’s supposed to be quiet.</p>
<p>Hopper looks up. Joyce waves him over.</p>
<p>There’s a desk in the back corner of the room, with a lamp sitting on it. They turn it on and spread the files out across the wood veneer. Hopper starts with the file that does, it turns out, belong to the girl they’re calling El. There’s no mistaking the photo clipped to the first page.</p>
<p>The first two files Joyce opens, 001 and 002, are marked with a bright red rubber stamp. A frightened-looking boy, six years old according to the dates on either side of the hyphen beside his name, who could start fires with his mind. A scowling girl, thirteen years old, who could teleport.</p>
<p><em>Terminated</em>.</p>
<p>It’s the third file that cracks what’s left of Joyce’s heart right in half. The kid in the photo is just an infant, round red face screwed up in a wail. The red rubber stamp, again. There’s less than a year between the dates on either side of the hyphen. The first date is about a month before Jonathan’s birthday.</p>
<p>Joyce doesn’t want to read any more. She can’t stop herself.</p>
<p>Subject 003’s abilities were – “Mutagenic?” Joyce mouths, as she reads the word. It’s not familiar, but she thinks she can work out the meaning. Especially when the rest of the file details the multiple, particularly aggressive cancers three of the researchers had unexpectedly – and quickly - developed after prolonged contact with the subject. With the <em>baby</em>.</p>
<p>One of them had claimed he’d started to be able to hear other people’s thoughts. He’d tested with 97% accuracy. Before he’d <em>died</em>, his brain all but devoured by one massive tumour, less than a week after the baby was brought in.</p>
<p>Joyce can’t help but feel a little like it serves him right.</p>
<p>They’d terminated subject 003 well ahead of schedule. Too dangerous to keep alive. They hadn’t been able to isolate, from its little corpse, what had given the baby its abilities. Hadn’t been able to use it to give telepathy to anyone else.</p>
<p>But files 004 and 005 are proof enough that that hadn’t stopped them from trying.</p>
<p>Joyce feels sick.</p>
<p>She pushes the files aside, getting to her feet and walking in a tight circle, running her hands through her hair, rubbing her arms. She can’t seem to get warm.</p>
<p>They have to find Will. They <em>have</em> to find Will. They have to get him and Jonathan <em>out</em> of this nightmare place. <em>Now.</em></p>
<p>She turns to Hopper, but he doesn’t seem to see her. He doesn’t seem to actually be reading the file laid open in front of him, either, just – staring at it. Twisting that blue band he wears around and around his wrist like he doesn’t even realise he’s doing it. With a look Joyce has never seen him wear splashed across his usually so closed-off face.</p>
<p>“What?” she asks, looking over his shoulder at the file. The girl in the photo has big blue eyes, a snub nose, and has either been shaven right to the scalp or has hair so fine and pale that it’s almost see-through.</p>
<p>“It’s her.”</p>
<p>Joyce looks up from the file in astonishment. Jim Hopper’s not a man who lets anyone see him cry. But that crack in his voice sounds dangerously close to tears.</p>
<p>Joyce looks back at the photo, searching the girl’s features for anything she recognises. “It’s <em>her</em>?”</p>
<p>“It’s <em>her</em>, Joyce!” The watery shake in Hopper’s voice is quickly overtaken by rage, but it sounds fragile, like the slightest thing might tip it back over into tears again. He stands like he’s exploding up out of the chair he shoves away from the desk, snapping one arm down at the file and its picture like he’d rather be hitting something. “She’s older – she’s <em>older!</em> – but that’s <em>her!</em> Those bastards – those <em>bastards -</em>”</p>
<p>“Hop -” Joyce says, reaching out, and Hopper fixes her with a look like he can’t decide whether to laugh or cry or break something. Knowing him, it’ll be the third.</p>
<p>“She was here, Joyce,” he says, like he still can’t bring himself to believe it. “All these years I thought she was dead, and – she was here. Right under my damn <em>nose. </em>She was here all along.”</p>
<p>Joyce looks down at the file.</p>
<p>There’s no red stamp glaring up from the first page. There’s a date, beside the photo. Just one date. And then a hyphen with nothing on the other side.</p>
<p>“Hop,” she says, slowly. And looks back up at him. “She might still be.”</p>
<p>Hopper shakes his head, clearly wrestling himself back under control. He huffs out an angry breath before saying, “The bastards’ve got no record of her past ’80.”</p>
<p>“All right, but -” Joyce reaches down, throws open file 001 with its big red <em>Terminated</em>, laying it out next to – to <em>Sara’s</em> for comparison and jabbing a finger triumphantly down on the page just below the stamp. “They don’t have any record of her death, either.”</p>
<p>The emotion that dawns so slowly in Hopper’s eyes as he looks down at her is another one Joyce isn’t used to seeing on him. It’s so unfamiliar that it takes her a moment to identify as hope.</p>
<p>“She’s alive,” he breathes. And then, like he doesn’t want to jinx it, “She <em>could be</em> alive.”</p>
<p>“She could be alive,” Joyce agrees.</p>
<p>And it’s then that they hear the screaming start.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There are some monsters that even other monsters fear.</p>
<p>The convoy of Power &amp; Light vans and military vehicles that had taken over the street outside Michael and Nancy Wheeler’s home does not entirely disperse at the report that the chief’s truck has been sighted at the Byers’ house. There are too many loose ends still. Michael – and 011 – might still return. And there is still the small mystery of a <em>very</em> interesting phone call which Nancy Wheeler received, from a friend who seemed somehow aware of Agent Frazier’s cover.</p>
<p>But the priority has not changed. Securing 011 is important above all other considerations. She is the single most promising test subject the Hawkins National Lab has ever produced. She is their greatest asset. Their greatest investment.</p>
<p>She must not become their greatest failure.</p>
<p>The convoy outside Michael and Nancy Wheeler’s home does not entirely disperse. But the man with the fatherly smile and reassuring words and empty eyes goes, without a word of explanation to the Wheelers.</p>
<p>Ted complains. Karen only clutches little Holly tighter, stroking a hand constantly, mindlessly over her fine soft hair.</p>
<p>She doesn’t start to relax until the row of sleek black cars have disappeared down the street into the dark.</p>
<p>Joyce Byers’ home is empty, by the time the row of sleek black cars arrives. But the man with the empty eyes turns them on the photograph and the walkie-talkie abandoned on the kitchen table, and smiles. It is not so fatherly, now. Nor are his words so reassuring.</p>
<p>“She was here.”</p>
<p>His instructions to search the woods, to <em>find her</em>, are interrupted by a radio transmission received by the stony-faced blonde at his right hand. His brief flicker of anger at the interruption dissolves as soon as he hears what the interruption <em>is</em>. A break-in, back at the lab. The intruders not detained. The guard on door duty unable to explain why he’d let them past.</p>
<p>It’s an inexcusable breach of security. Only the stony-faced blonde is brave enough to ask the man with the empty eyes why he’s still smiling.</p>
<p>The only answer she gets is an order. Call off the search and return to the lab.</p>
<p>He cuts the protests that they still haven’t thoroughly searched the woods short with a wave of his hand. “No need.”</p>
<p>For the first time, there is something in those cold eyes. It is almost worse than the emptiness had been.</p>
<p>“She’s come home.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Even Mike has to grudgingly admit, the way Steve talks the guards at the lab into letting them in is kind of cool. This time, he doesn’t waste any time trying to reason with them, just marches up, makes eye contact, and says, “You’re gonna let us in there. And you’re not gonna tell anybody we’re here.”</p>
<p>The guy in the gatehouse doesn’t even blink, just buzzes them through. The three guys gathered around the door having an angry conversation look at Steve and the Party like they’re getting suspicious, until Steve says, “<em>Now</em>,” and they fall all over themselves to get out of the way.</p>
<p>“Not the droids you’re looking for,” Dustin says, sounding impressed, as El considers the hallways radiating off the main lobby.</p>
<p>Lucas sighs. “Would you shut up about the stupid droids?”</p>
<p>“Jesus,” Steve says, muffled by the hand pinching off his nose. “Shoulda brought tissues.”</p>
<p>He rubs blood off on the sleeve of his sweatshirt with a disappointed frown as El picks a hall and starts down it, the others trailing along after her. “Shit. You weren’t kidding about using this stuff draining you.”</p>
<p>“Are you okay?” Dustin asks, his head snapping up.</p>
<p>“You’re not gonna pass out on us, right?” Mike says. “Because we <em>will</em> leave you behind.”</p>
<p>“Mike! No we won’t!”</p>
<p>“ ‘m fine,” Steve says. “Just so long as we don’t run into anybody -”</p>
<p>They round a corner, and pile to a stop. Down the hall, the group of six armed guards clustered around a door sealed behind a plastic curtain start, turning towards them.</p>
<p>“- else,” Steve finishes.</p>
<p>“<em>Shit!</em>” Dustin looks expectantly up at Steve, who gives a scared little shake of his head.</p>
<p>“I don’t know, that’s more people than I’ve ever – I was pushing it with the three at the door -”</p>
<p>There’s a shout. Somebody’s recognised El. A second later, six guns are drawn and pointed at them.</p>
<p>“Go, go, go!” Steve yells, launching himself forward. Mike makes an executive decision.</p>
<p>He grabs El’s arm and turns, running back the way they came. He glances back at the sound of footsteps behind him, and is relieved to see it’s Dustin and Lucas following, and not the guards. From the angry shouts and heavy thumps from back down the hall, Mike figures Steve is probably the reason for that. He feels briefly bad about being such a brat to the guy, but not bad enough to turn around.</p>
<p>They tear down the hall, around a corner – and skid to a stop. The lobby is still empty, for now, but the doors are already swinging open, and a lot of serious-looking men – and one serious-looking woman - in serious-looking suits with serious-looking weapons are filing in. Mike doesn’t recognise the old guy in the long black coat who’s at the front of the group, but something about him sends a chill racing down Mike’s spine.</p>
<p>He turns around, to duck back down the hall – but El doesn’t follow. She’s absolutely frozen with terror, her wide eyes fixed on the old guy’s face.</p>
<p>Her voice is barely above a whisper, just a quiet, frightened exhale that almost isn’t even a sound. “<em>Papa</em>.”</p>
<p>There’s no way anybody could’ve heard that. But the old guy looks up. Across the lobby. And locks eyes with El.</p>
<p>And smiles.</p>
<p>It’s not a sinister smile. He looks like somebody’s grandpa. Or a school principal who’d be tough but fair, if you got called into his office. And he smiles like he’s relieved, like he’s actually happy to see El.</p>
<p>But she’s so scared of him that it’s even almost choking <em>Mike</em>. And that mild, pleased smile is making Mike’s skin crawl more than any Demogorgon ever could.</p>
<p>“Eleven,” the old guy says, speeding up as he crosses the lobby towards them. Mike takes a half-step forward, trying to put himself between the guy and El. He doesn’t know what he can do, but – he <em>won’t</em> just let this creep get his hands on her without a fight.</p>
<p>It turns out he doesn’t have to do anything, though. Because El <em>screams</em>.</p>
<p>That weird tension, that almost-silent bass thrum, pulses underneath the earsplitting shriek. There’s a split second of stillness, just long enough for Mike to brace himself.</p>
<p>And then every window and glass door in the lobby all explode at once. Hundreds of thousands of glittering, deadly shards burst outwards and hang, in a shimmering halo, for a single second before ripping through the crowd around the doors.</p>
<p>The scream stops. The weird tension doesn’t.</p>
<p>The panicked shouts from the crowd of guards and armed men in three-piece suits go abruptly and eerily silent, as they all freeze in place. Even the old guy takes a stumbling step back. “Eleven,” he says, warningly. But he doesn’t quite stop smiling. Mike realises, horrified, that the guy’s actually <em>excited</em> to see what El’s going to do next.</p>
<p>Mike shifts his grip on El’s wrist, finds her hand and grasps it in his.</p>
<p>El stares. The air hums.</p>
<p>And the bad men bleed.</p>
<p>Mike’s first, slightly crazy thought is that they <em>all</em> have powers. But it’s not just nostrils that dark blood is leaking out of. It’s eyes. And ears. And mouths. And it’s – it’s too <em>much</em> blood.</p>
<p>When El blinks, and they all fall like puppets with their strings cut, Mike isn’t surprised. Apparently, she really <em>can</em> make your brain melt out your nose.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the old guy doesn’t drop with the rest of them. And even more unfortunately, El wobbles, and then collapses across Mike’s shoulder, out like a light. Mike barely manages to catch her before she hits the floor, but suddenly taking all her weight makes him stagger and knocks him down to one knee. “El! El, wake up!”</p>
<p>“Eleven,” the old guy repeats, for the third time, sounding scared. He hurries over and drops to his knees, as well, reaching out. Mike tries to pull El back out of his reach, but she’s <em>heavy</em> when she’s unconscious, and –</p>
<p>And then there’s a rough grip on Mike’s shoulders, pulling him back and up to his feet. He can hear Dustin and Lucas yelling, too, as the old guy gathers El’s limp body up in his arms and cups her face in both hands, giving her this weirdly gentle shake. He hadn’t even been this scared when all his people were dropping dead around him. “Eleven – wake up, wake up -”</p>
<p>“Get your hands off her!” Mike screams, kicking and struggling against the firm grip holding him in place. But the guard or whoever just drags him back farther, out of reach of either El or the old guy. He can see, now, that Dustin and Lucas have been similarly captured. There’s a hand over Dustin’s mouth, and Lucas’ arms are pinned behind his back. “Don’t you touch her, leave her alone – <em>El!</em>”</p>
<p>Mike doesn’t know whether to melt with relief or sob in terror when El’s eyes flutter slowly open. “…Mike?”</p>
<p>“Eleven,” the old guy sighs, turning her face towards him, so Mike can’t see her eyes anymore. And, he thinks, with a swell of rage, so she can’t see <em>him</em>. “It’s all right. I knew you wouldn’t hurt me. Not your own Papa.” He gives a horrible smile. “You’re safe now. You’re home.”</p>
<p>“No,” El says, and it’s a sob. Mike doesn’t have to see her face to tell – she’s miserable. Terrified, and hurt, and guilty, and <em>miserable</em>. Just seeing her like this is making his own chest squeeze up painfully, and for a second, Mike wonders if he’s having a heart attack. “No…”</p>
<p>“Shh. Shh, it’s all right. You did the right thing, coming home. You’ve been sick,” the old guy says, all soft and reassuring, like he hadn’t just got all excited watching El kill a roomful of people. Mike wants to puke all over the guy’s shiny black shoes. “But I’m going to make you better.”</p>
<p>“You’re not going to do <em>anything</em> to her, you shitty old bitch! Let her go! El! <em>El!</em>”</p>
<p>Mike tries to bite the hand that closes over his mouth, cutting off anything else he might have said. But he can’t quite get a good angle to get his teeth into the meat of a finger.</p>
<p>“We’ll get you back to your room,” the old guy goes on, tucking an arm under El’s knees and another under her shoulders, straightening up and scooping her up like she’s just a little kid who’s fallen asleep on the couch, and he’s going to put her to bed. El struggles, a little, but she still seems worn out from using her powers so much. Doesn’t have the strength to stop him.</p>
<p>And – from the choked way she says, “Papa,” and turns her face against his coat, Mike isn’t sure she totally wants to.</p>
<p>The smug, terrible old asshole smiles like he’s won.</p>
<p>“You are my favourite, Eleven,” he says, looking at El like Mike’s dad looks at his new TV. “The others…so many disappointments. But <em>you</em> – so much power, and yet, so pliable. I did, if I may say so, my best work with you.”</p>
<p>Even from here, Mike can see El’s eyes start to widen in surprise as she looks up at his face. “…Papa?”</p>
<p>“Of course I’m upset about this little…runaway stunt. But look! You’re really so dependent that, even when you had the chance to get away, you came <em>back</em>. Wouldn’t kill me even when you had every opportunity to.” The old guy’s still smiling, but El’s looking up at him in horror. And – if Mike’s not wrong, she’s starting to get mad, too. “You can decimate a room in seconds, and yet – you’re completely helpless without me. You’re <em>perfect</em>.”</p>
<p>His smile grows wider and fonder and worse as he says, “A perfect weapon.”</p>
<p>“Sir,” one of the guards says, sounding worried, though Mike can’t tell whether it’s because of what the old guy’s saying or because he doesn’t know what’ll happen if he interrupts.</p>
<p>Mike’s not sure what’s going on, but he thinks he’s got an idea. It’s a struggle to turn his head, but out of the corner of his eye, he can see Lucas, glaring down the old guy. And – that might be blood creeping from Lucas’ nose.</p>
<p>The old guy gives the guard a look that sends a chill racing right down Mike’s spine. “We’ll have to make sure these three don’t have the opportunity to negatively influence Eleven any further. And they’ve seen too much.” He looks at Dustin, and Mike wants to just rip the guy’s eyeballs right out of his skull. “The quarry would make an acceptable disposal site.”</p>
<p>Mike stares at the creep for a long moment, unable to believe his ears. This guy’s actually going to <em>kill</em> them. Well. Have them killed. Same difference.</p>
<p>El’s really squirming, now, upset and starting to get some of her energy back. “No – Papa, <em>no -</em>”</p>
<p>“Shh,” the old guy says, turning back to her with that awful syrupy smile. “Don’t trouble yourself, Eleven. I’m only going to have your new friends disposed of so you’ll be easier to control again.”</p>
<p>El stares at him. There’s that weird hum again, buzzing up through Mike’s feet and setting his teeth on edge.</p>
<p>“<em>Sir</em>,” the guard repeats, a little more urgently this time.</p>
<p>The old guy frowns, a little, like he’s just starting to hear what he’s saying.</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t – not so she could hear,” he says, looking down. “Eleven? Is that you?”</p>
<p>El glares back at him. There’s a little wobble in her lower lip, though, as she shakes her head. “<em>No.</em>” She twists her face away, searching out Mike’s eyes. “<em>No! Mike!</em>”</p>
<p>She flings an arm out towards him. The old guy’s head snaps up, and he fixes a glare on Mike’s face, too. Mike’s a little scared of the icy anger in it. Sure, this guy was always going to have them killed. But now, Mike thinks, it’s <em>personal</em>.</p>
<p>He sees the moment that anger turns into confusion, though, those cold eyes flicking down to the hand the guard’s pressed firmly over Mike’s mouth and, Mike’s guessing, the lack of blood there. The old guy turns to look at Dustin, then Lucas, and Mike feels the bottom drop out of his stomach as he starts to smile again.</p>
<p>“Interesting,” the old guy says, taking a step towards Lucas. Mike kicks out, squirming against the chokehold the guard’s got him in with everything in him, and he sees Dustin doing the same, but – it isn’t doing anything. These guards are too big, too strong, for them to fight. “I think we’ll want to keep this one as well. Open a new file. And clear a cell.”</p>
<p>Mike’s scream is muffled by the hand over his mouth.</p>
<p>But El’s isn’t.</p>
<p>It’s nothing like the one that took out all the glass in the lobby. But the pulse of – <em>whatever</em> slams into everyone in the hall, knocking them all over like bowling pins. A well-placed elbow, and Mike’s free, scrambling for his friends.</p>
<p>El’s still shaky on her feet, collapsing across Mike’s shoulder with an exhausted sob as soon as he’s in reach. Dustin and Lucas group up around them, glowering out at the guards and the old guy, who’re a little slower getting to their feet. Mike catches himself wishing his mom was here. Or the chief. Or <em>Nancy</em>, or even <em>Steve</em>. <em>Some</em>body.</p>
<p>He knows, and he knows the others know it, too, that this is their last stand. Mike wishes he had some kind of great speech planned, something to make his friends less miserable and afraid. To pluck up their courage and steel their spines. To tell them that at least it was all for <em>something</em>. That they’re so brave, and strong, and amazing, and he wouldn’t want to die with anyone else fighting at his side.</p>
<p>But this isn’t D&amp;D. Mike doesn’t want to die.</p>
<p>El wraps her arms around his neck. Mike puts an arm around her waist, holding her upright as much as he’s comforting her. She’s shaking like a leaf, and he can’t tell if it’s with anger or hurt or despair or fear or guilt or betrayal or shame or – or <em>what</em>. She’s just a mess. Everything this old guy – <em>Papa</em> – did, whatever he’s planning to do – to her <em>and</em> to Lucas and, and to the others, too, if he finds out about them - it’s hurt her so bad. And not just her. Every last one of them are here because of something this guy did –</p>
<p>“Haven’t you hurt her enough?” Mike yells, and the old guy actually stops in his tracks. “Haven’t you hurt <em>everybody</em> enough?”</p>
<p>There’s a hot, tight feeling in Mike’s eyes, in his chest, in his head. And the old guy’s still just – smug, under a little bit of annoyance. Like it’s <em>inconveniencing</em> him that the Party are still alive.</p>
<p>Mike locks eyes with the guy, holding El a little tighter, and glares with everything he’s got. Like maybe if he just tries hard enough, pushes hard enough, he can borrow some of her power and keep the guy away with just his mind.</p>
<p>He wishes, sudden and stronger than anything he’s ever wished before, that this – this – this <em>monster</em> felt just as bad as El does. Worse. Every, every little thing he’s ever done, everybody he’s ever hurt or made to hurt, all the fear and rage and pain – <em>all </em>of it. <em>He</em> should be the one to have to feel it.</p>
<p>The old guy’s eyes open a fraction of an inch wider. Surprised. <em>Interested</em>. He starts to take a step forward.</p>
<p>Somewhere in Mike, or around him, or – or <em>somewhere</em>, that hot, tight, squeezing feeling suddenly <em>gives</em>. Mike meets the old guy’s eyes, and all of a sudden, he feels – light. Above all this mess and emotion. Like he could do anything. Like he could do whatever he wants, and get away with it.</p>
<p>He looks the smug old asshole in the eye and says, “Pick on somebody your own size.”</p>
<p>The next thing Mike knows, he’s on his knees on the floor. Somebody’s shaking his shoulder. Somebody’s yelling his name, over and over. He feels like he just ran laps for an <em>entire</em> gym class. His nose is running. His head hurts.</p>
<p>He sniffs, and blinks, and there are three sighs of relief. Dustin shouts, “Mike! Back with us, buddy?” and Lucas claps a hand on Mike’s shoulder, smiling down at him. El’s giving him a watery smile, too.</p>
<p>“You scared the shit out of us,” Lucas says. “We thought for sure you were toast -”</p>
<p>“Don’t worry,” Dustin interrupts. “You saved our lives, so I’ll let you off the hook for lying about having powers.”</p>
<p>That doesn’t make sense. Mike tries to make his brain come up to speed. “What?”</p>
<p>“Dude,” Lucas says, like he completely can’t believe how obtuse Mike is being.</p>
<p>Dustin echoes his disbelief, his face and voice deadpan. “Mike. Are you shitting me right now.”</p>
<p>Mike wipes his running nose off on the back of his hand as he looks around. Two of the guards are gone – not lying dead with blood oozing out of their heads or anything, just not there. The third one is sobbing quietly into his knees in a doorwell a little way back along the hall. He doesn’t seem to notice that the Party are still there, or if he does, he doesn’t seem to care. He’s just rocking and repeating, “Sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” to the thin air.</p>
<p>And the old guy, El’s <em>Papa</em> –</p>
<p>Mike almost asks what’s wrong with him. But – it’s obvious.</p>
<p>It hurts just to look at the guy. His face has gone slack, as motionless as the rest of him, sitting slumped back against the wall like a discarded doll. His eyes aren’t focused on anything Mike can see. He’s – actually, he’s starting to get a little bead of drool happening at one corner of his mouth, which, gross. But Mike doesn’t need to be able to read his face to know he’s snarled up <em>good</em> inside, all that hurt El had felt and more, all that pain and fear and furious, desperate –</p>
<p>Wait.</p>
<p>Mike…doesn’t need to be able to read his face.</p>
<p>He looks down, at the back of his hand, where he’d smeared his snot. Except. It’s not snot. There’s a bright swipe of red standing out against his skin.</p>
<p>“What’d you even <em>do</em> to him?” Lucas asks, and Mike turns to look at him. It’s so obvious, now that Mike’s looking for it. Lucas – impressed, just a little freaked out. Dustin – impressed and freaked out too, with a little disappointment and maybe a sliver of envy mixed in. El – El’s still all tangled up and hurt, but more relieved, now. Less scared.</p>
<p>“You mean you can’t <em>tell</em>?” Mike asks, anyway. Because – because Mike Wheeler is ordinary. Not –</p>
<p>Dustin and Lucas are both shaking their heads.</p>
<p>Mike…isn’t sure what his <em>own</em> emotions are doing.</p>
<p>But he looks up, at El’s cautious smile, and – well. It doesn’t matter so much.</p>
<p>He musters up a smile of his own, from somewhere, and shows her the back of his hand. And the telltale smear of blood there. “Look. We match.”</p>
<p>El looks at him, for a long time, like she can’t decide what to think. What to feel.</p>
<p>Then she snorts, pressing a hand to her mouth to smother a giggle she’s shocked at herself for. Mike can’t help but laugh himself at that, which sets her off again. And then they’re both just sitting there laughing at each other like nothing’s wrong in the world at all.</p>
<p>Mike’s not sure how the four of them get from there to an adrenaline-crash hug pile on the floor of the lab, but he’s not going to complain about it.</p>
<p>They aren’t there for long, though, before there’s a clatter of footsteps from the hall. A spike of fear shoots through them all, and El goes frozen-stiff, her grip on Mike suddenly turning crushing –</p>
<p>The chief and Mrs. Byers come rushing around the corner, and come to a staggering stop at the sight of the Party, fear and anger and determination turning to relief – and annoyance.</p>
<p>“Anybody hurt?” Hopper barks. “We heard screaming -”</p>
<p>The Party all shake their heads.</p>
<p>“Great. Then what the <em>hell</em> are you all doing here?”</p>
<p>“Whose <em>blood</em> is that?” demands Will’s mom, who has better priorities, if you ask Mike.</p>
<p>“Not ours,” Lucas offers. Mike and Dustin nod in agreement. “Whose blood is <em>that</em>?”</p>
<p>“Not ours,” Hopper echoes. “We got…held up, back there.” He looks them over, scowls a little deeper. “If you’re here – which you should <em>not be </em>- where’s the Harrington kid?”</p>
<p>“Here.”</p>
<p>Mike looks up. Steve gives an awkward little wave as he comes down the other hall. He looks a little worse for wear, which is impressive, considering the state he came <em>in</em> in. The collar of his sweatshirt’s torn, and it looks like his mouth’s been bleeding, but judging by the kind of half-jog he’s doing down the hall toward them, nothing too important must be broken. The dazed-looking guy in the ugly brown suit who’s trailing along after him is having trouble keeping up. “Sorry, I – I just lucked out that they sent this schmuck in to interrogate me one on one.”</p>
<p>He pauses, looking at the Party and obviously counting heads, before he starts to relax. “Wheeler, why’s your face all bloody?”</p>
<p>“Why’s <em>your</em> face all messed up? And I don’t mean the black eye.”</p>
<p>“Watch it, shithead, or I’ll make you tap-dance.”</p>
<p>“<em>Okay</em>,” Hopper growls, obviously fed up. “Looks like you’ve all had enough excitement for one night. You’re all getting the hell out of here, and once we’ve got Joyce’s kids, we will <em>meet</em> you -”</p>
<p>“Hey, yeah, where <em>is</em> Jonathan?” Steve interrupts, with a flash of sudden worry. “And – Nancy? What -”</p>
<p>Whatever else he’d been about to say, he bites it off at the sound of a distant roar.</p>
<p>The lights overhead flicker, once.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In one version of this story, Jonathan Byers and Nancy Wheeler summon a monster.</p>
<p>In one version of this story, Jonathan Byers and Nancy Wheeler know that blood summons the monster.</p>
<p>In one version of this story, Jonathan Byers and Nancy Wheeler are ready for the monster.</p>
<p>This is not that story.</p>
<p>By the time everyone else spills out of the elevator and into the underground room where the gate pulses like an open wound, Nancy Wheeler is sprawled motionless on the cold concrete, blood trickling down across her forehead. In another story, she’d observe that the hulking grey shape crouched over her, roaring triumph with one ragged, torn petal flapping, is a large predator, like a shark, or a bear. Like any other predator, it needs to eat. Like any other predator, it’s drawn towards the scent of blood. Of prey.</p>
<p>But, like any other predator, when under threat from another predator, it will first defend its territory.</p>
<p>The fire extinguisher Jonathan slams into its side gets its attention only long enough for it to swing one tree-trunk arm into his midsection, knocking him off his feet and throwing him effortlessly aside. It shakes off the bullets Hopper pumps into it like gnats, irritating but harmless. The stones fired from Lucas’ slingshot bounce harmlessly off, as well.</p>
<p>Until one of them hits with impossible force, and sends the monster flying back.</p>
<p>The panicked hubbub gives way to a bubble of focused quiet around the girl with a number instead of a name. Only one other person in the room can know how she’s feeling; only one can know what she’s thinking. But as she steps forward, in front of her friends, towards the monster, everyone in that room can see what she means to do.</p>
<p>And no matter how they try, no one in that room can stop her.</p>
<p>In another story, 011 – Jane Ives, Eleanor, Eleven, <em>El</em> – stands face-to-face with the monster she let into the world. Plants herself between it and the boys she’s come to know as <em>friends</em>. Between it and the world she’s been kept apart from for so long, the world she’d barely had a chance to start to know. Between it and the future she hopes for, even knowing it can’t come true.</p>
<p>And says <em>no more</em>.</p>
<p>In another story, for her, the story ends here.</p>
<p>El throws out a hand.</p>
<p>The monster roars, and struggles. And starts, from its torn petal and its outstretched, taloned hand, to peel apart. A storm of black flecks tear away from its suspended form, reaching out to encircle the screaming girl.</p>
<p>A glow begins to build, in the centre of the monster’s ribcage.</p>
<p>And then –</p>
<p>There’s a sound like a thunderclap. Huge arcs of jagged purple-white light tear through the monster from the inside out, earthing themselves in the concrete below and the ceiling overhead, snapping and licking through the air like living things. The monster jerks, and twitches, gives one final, pitiful cry, and then – lights up inside from toes to flaring petals, bones clear against the skin in the electric glow.</p>
<p>When it goes dark, again, it droops lifelessly in El’s telekinetic hold. There’s an overpowering stench of scorched flesh.</p>
<p>The silence is absolute.</p>
<p>El stares. And then, very, very slowly, lowers her arm. The monster slumps, boneless, puddling awkwardly to the floor like an empty rubber suit.</p>
<p>To reveal, behind it, standing framed by the sinister pulse of the gate – a pale, wide-eyed, bloody-nosed boy, with his arm outstretched in a mirror of El’s pose, staring back.</p>
<p>To the surprise of absolutely no one, it’s Joyce Byers who breaks both the silence and the shocked, frozen stillness first. “<em>Will!</em>”</p>
<p>She flies across the room just in time to catch him as he sways, as his knees go out from under him. He leans heavily into her as they both hit the floor, looking up from the smothering embrace she’s wrapped him up in. “…Mom?”</p>
<p>“Yes, baby, yes – I’ve got you, you’re safe – <em>Will</em>, oh my god, Will -”</p>
<p>She looks up. Catches El’s eye. And then shakes her head, and holds out an arm, silently beckoning her over. El hesitates, but only for a moment.</p>
<p>Jonathan starts towards their little huddle, as well, but freezes at a flutter of movement from the curious strings hanging across the mouth of the gate. Joyce doesn’t notice, her face buried in Will’s dark hair. But she’s the only one. Everyone else goes tense, everyone else’s eyes fix on the shape – the <em>hand</em> thrusting out through the horribly fleshy membrane barely keeping one world from bleeding into the other –</p>
<p>Barbara Holland stumbles through the gate, coughs once into her hand, and then straightens up, rubbing slime from the cracked lenses of her glasses.</p>
<p>She takes in the monster crumpled on the floor in a smoking heap, the shocked stares from all around, and asks, “Did we win?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Of course, that’s not the end of the story.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>“She’s the one who led me here,” Will explains, earnestly, to his rapt audience of friends and family. He throws a small smile across the cramped little room at Barbara, who smiles back. She’s busy fussing over the bump on Nancy’s forehead, though, and doesn’t join in the storytelling. “No way I would’ve found that – portal thing on my own. And if she hadn’t had that torch…”</p><p>“Nancy, this might need stitches -”</p><p>“I’m <em>fine</em>, okay? Everybody’s alive, that <em>thing</em> is dead – I’m fine. Are <em>you</em> all right? I don’t like the sound of that cough…”</p><p>“Was that <em>ball lightning</em>?” Dustin demands, apparently unable to contain his bubbling excitement a single second longer. “Where’d you learn to do that?”</p><p>Will smiles again, a little shy, a little proud. “I’ve been practicing. I mean, it’s no fireball, and I couldn’t do it again tonight, probably, but -”</p><p>“Are you kidding? That was bad <em>ass!</em> You totally crispy-fried the Demogorgon! The <em>Demogorgon!</em>”</p><p>“Yeah, that was a real-life nat 20 if I’ve ever seen one,” Mike agrees.</p><p>Will’s smile twists, just a little, something going sour underneath it. “You guys don’t think I’m…weird?”</p><p>Lucas snorts, but there’s nothing but fondness in it. “Um, <em>duh</em> you’re weird. Remember that Halloween when you made us all go as our characters? Or that time in third grade, when we did that science project on the solar system, and <em>you -</em>”</p><p>“If you’re weird,” Mike interrupts, with a glare at Lucas that he can’t totally keep from turning into a smile, “then we’re all weird.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Lucas says. “You’re <em>our</em> weirdo. And we’re so glad to have you back.”</p><p>A little of Will’s worry drains away. “Cool. Then – maybe we can all be weird together.”</p><p>“Well,” Dustin says, with a little sharp twist of envy and a pointed look at Mike. “Maybe not <em>all</em> of us.”</p><p>Will turns to look curiously at Mike too, which doesn’t seem totally fair. Shouldn’t they be looking at Lucas too?</p><p>But it’s Mike they’re looking at. So it’s Mike who takes a deep breath, and says, to Will, “So…you’re not the only one with powers.”</p><p>Will blinks at him, unsurprised. “Yeah. I know. There’s Jonathan, and Barbara, and…” He smiles at the silent girl pressed close against Mike’s side. She’s barely said a word since Will got back, suddenly shy for some reason, and when Will looks at her, she stares back with something that Mike thinks is – not quite fear, but close. Maybe <em>apprehension </em>is the word. “El, right?”</p><p>El nods, once, her fingers tightening on Mike’s arm.</p><p>Will beams at her. “Thanks for taking care of these guys while I was gone. They definitely would’ve got themselves all killed without you.”</p><p>The cautious smile that spreads across El’s face is like dawn breaking.</p><p>“Hey,” Dustin protests. “The Bloodstone Path incident was <em>one time</em>.”</p><p>Will ignores him, still focusing on El. “I missed <em>everything</em>. You gotta tell me. Did Lucas really hit the Demogorgon with a table lamp?”</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>Joyce hasn’t let go of her youngest once, holding him close even as the armed guards had…<em>escorted</em> them all up from that room deep in the bowels of the building. Right now, she’s got an arm tucked around Will’s skinny shoulders, raising her hand every so often to stroke over his dark hair or brush a lock back out of his face. Reassuring herself that he’s still there. Still solid. Still real.</p><p>She’s making the appropriate noises at the right moments as Will and his friends swap stories. But she barely hears their words. She can’t take her eyes off of Will. Has the most irrational feeling that if she looks away for just a moment too long, he might just vanish into thin air.</p><p>Again.</p><p>Joyce knows they’re locked in, here. That they’re being watched. She assumes the door is guarded. She doesn’t regret any of it – can’t – but what they’ve done tonight has blown up any kind of secrecy, any kind of safety, that any of them might have had. She knows there’s a very real chance that none of them will ever be allowed to walk away from this place.</p><p>She also knows, with a calmness and a certainty that surprises her, that she will die before she lets anyone take her children from her again.</p><p>“…and Jennifer Hayes cried at your assembly!”</p><p>“Dustin! You don’t know that!”</p><p>“Well, she <em>might</em> have! I don’t know, we weren’t there. But she was sniffling a bunch, before we left.”</p><p>“Yeah, we missed the good stuff. We were busy looking for <em>you</em>.”</p><p>“…They had an assembly? For <em>me</em>?”</p><p>“They almost had a <em>funeral</em> for you! Lucas, tell him about the body!”</p><p>Jonathan, sitting beside her, leans a little closer, bumping his shoulder against Joyce’s. Joyce reaches out, and clasps his hand tight, her thumb stroking back and forth over the back of his hand. They aren’t talking – at least, not in any way that would be audible to an onlooker – and neither of them can seem to stop looking at Will in amazement, in disbelief, in relief.</p><p>But neither of them lets go of the other’s hand.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>Jonathan looks up when Steve finally makes up his mind, a few seconds before Steve stops pacing and drops into the uncomfortable metal chair beside him. There isn’t really room, with the hastily-rounded-up chairs stuffed into the interrogation room where they’ve been kept waiting for long enough that Jonathan’s starting to worry a little, to do much pacing, but Steve doesn’t seem much more comfortable sitting down.</p><p>He slumps in his seat, crossing his arms and letting his legs sprawl, with a glance over at Jonathan that would probably have looked more nonchalant to somebody who couldn’t hear how many times he’s nervously gone over what, exactly, he should say inside his head. “Hey. You feeling all right?”</p><p>Jonathan can feel his eyebrows shoot up as he looks over. “Asks the guy whose face looks like ground beef.”</p><p>Steve shrugs one shoulder, turning to stare at the two-way mirror that takes up one wall like he doesn’t really care one way or the other. It’s a half-decent bluff. Or would be, if he hadn’t decided to sit next to the guy who reads minds. Jonathan has to wonder why he’s even trying. “That thing got you good. And broken ribs are a bitch, I busted two skiing a couple years back and you would not <em>believe</em> what a pain they were to heal.” He turns to look back over at Jonathan, a little of his worry bleeding over into his voice as he says, “I know you told your mom you’re fine, but -”</p><p>“<em>Stop</em>,” Jonathan sighs, “beating yourself up about it? Nothing <em>any</em> of us did was even touching that thing.”</p><p>“Yeah, but -” Steve shrugs, again, and sinks a little lower in his chair, glaring at the locked door as he bounces one knee over and over and over. “I could’ve…I mean, I don’t know <em>what</em>, but – just feels like I should’ve done <em>some</em>thing.” He casts a mournful look over in Nancy’s direction, but stays stubbornly stuck in his seat. “Shouldn’t have let you guys get hurt.”</p><p>“Really. It’s okay. Nancy’s okay. <em>I’m</em> okay.” Jonathan looks over, with a small smile, but Steve doesn’t take his eyes off of Nancy, even though he must know Jonathan can tell it’s not just her he’s thinking of. “Weirdly sweet of you to care, though.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, apparently that’s what friends are supposed to do.” Steve turns back, startling a little when he sees Jonathan looking right at him. “We – sorry, we are friends, right? I mean, we <em>could</em> be friends, obviously we’re not yet, it’s been like a day, I don’t know what I’m talking about -”</p><p>He bites off his rambling when Jonathan laughs. “Are you always this awkward?”</p><p>“Hey, usually people already like me!” Steve protests, but he’s starting to smile too. “Or at least they’re a little impressed by me. You’re a special case, Byers.”</p><p>Jonathan gives him a considering look. Steve fidgets. Still so loud. So earnest. With his heart right out on his sleeve.</p><p>“Yeah,” Jonathan admits, after a moment, unable to totally keep up the indifferent act. “Fine, yeah, we could try being friends.”</p><p>The smile that breaks across Steve’s face is broad and genuine. “Really? Cool.” He winces, reaching up to gingerly touch his split lip. “Ow. Ow, ow, ow. Okay, ‘facial expressions’ are a no.”</p><p>Jonathan huffs out a laugh, but the flicker of amusement doesn’t last. He can’t totally relax, not with these white walls closing them all in, not with that flat expanse of black glass looking in on them, not with the door still locked.</p><p>Steve follows his gaze to the door, eyebrows flicking up and eyes widening as the realisation strikes him. When he speaks again, it’s low and more serious than Jonathan thinks he’s maybe ever heard him. “They thinking about letting us out of here ever?”</p><p>Jonathan shakes his head. “They’re staying out of range. Don’t want to take any chances on you talking your way out of another locked room.” He tries for a smile, but Steve isn’t fooled. “The chief thinks he’s got some kind of ace up his sleeve, but…they really don’t <em>want</em> to let us go.”</p><p>“Big surprise there.” Before Jonathan can say anything, offer any kind of reassurance, Steve’s already deliberately, determinedly shuttering off dark possibilities and kicking them under the metaphorical mental bed. “They just better not try shaving my head like they did to that kid. I’d look so stupid.”</p><p>“You look pretty stupid now,” Jonathan cracks, even though he doesn’t mean it. He steals a sidelong glance at Steve before adding, “Nancy’d still think you’re cute.”</p><p>“<em>Nancy</em> doesn’t want to talk to me,” Steve says, unable to decide if he’s grateful for the distraction or wishing he could avoid talking about this too. Jonathan realises, with a sickening lurch, that he can relate. He wonders when he got so invested in Nancy Wheeler and Steve Harrington’s relationship. <em>Why</em> he got so invested in Nancy Wheeler and Steve Harrington’s relationship. He just – doesn’t want to see either of them unhappy.</p><p>Apparently, Steve’s not the only one who can latch onto somebody in less than a day. Jonathan would feel pathetic, if Steve hadn’t embarrassed himself extending the hand of friendship first. It’s weirdly reassuring to know he’s not alone.</p><p>“I thought the whole reason you were avoiding her was because you felt guilty for not letting her make her own decisions.” Jonathan elbows Steve in the arm, nodding in Nancy’s direction. “Talk to her.”</p><p>“Fine,” Steve says, but Jonathan can see the <em>but</em> coming a mile away. “When we get out of here.”</p><p>Jonathan rolls his eyes, but manages to bite back the <em>if we get out of here</em> that’s on the tip of both of their tongues.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>“How did you <em>not</em> see it coming?” Nancy asks Barb, tuning out her brother and his friends. She tries, very hard, to pretend she doesn’t notice Steve and Jonathan both looking at her, not to look back over at them. She succeeds. Mostly.</p><p>Barb gives a sheepish chuckle. “I was too busy worrying about <em>you</em>. You did kind of run headlong at the monster. I didn’t even think <em>I</em> might be the one in danger.”</p><p>“We were coming to find you,” Nancy says, a little anxiously, and Barb smiles and gives her a nudge with her shoulder. Her blouse leaves a smear of sticky black goop on Nancy’s jacket. Nancy can’t bring herself to care. “Even <em>Steve</em> was worried.”</p><p>“I know. I knew you wouldn’t just leave me there.” The smile turns abruptly serious, and Barb adds, “I wouldn’t have left <em>you</em> there, either. If it was the other way around.”</p><p>It’s Nancy’s turn to smile, and bump her shoulder against her best friend’s. “I know.”</p><p>“So…” Barb glances over, across the tiny room, at where the Byers family – and Steve - are sitting. “Even <em>Steve</em> was worried, huh?”</p><p>Nancy bites down on her lower lip with a half-smile, looking down at her hands as she tries to sort out her thoughts. “Yeah. Yeah, um…”</p><p>She looks back up at Barb, and sighs. “There’ve been…a few <em>developments </em>while you were gone. And not just in my love life.”</p><p>Barb sits back in the uncomfortable metal chair. “Well, it doesn’t look like they’re planning to let us out of here any time soon, so…might as well tell me the whole story. From the beginning.”</p><p>Nancy wants to. She really does. But she can’t help but look up at the door, first. “Um…”</p><p>Barb follows her gaze, and shakes her head with a sigh. “Honestly, Nancy, I don’t know if we get out of here.”</p><p>It’s more blunt than Nancy was expecting, and she gives Barb a startled look. “But – can’t you – like you did back at the Byers’ -”</p><p>Barb’s already shaking her head. “The well is dry, Nance. I’m <em>exhausted</em>. That place…” She glances down at her feet and the floor below, and then over at Will, before giving her head another shake. “I can’t. Not again, not tonight. And – without putting that much energy into it, I just can’t tell.”</p><p>“What does that mean? I thought you said it was easier if it was people you cared about in danger. Aren’t we in danger?”</p><p>Barb shoots her a rueful grin. “<em>So</em> much danger. But -”</p><p>She glances up at the two-way mirror that covers one of the walls before she speaks. Nancy follows her gaze, but all she sees is her own reflection, looking pale and thin and scared in the darkness of the glass.</p><p>“It’s all hinging on <em>something</em>,” Barb says. “Some kind of – turning point. A choice. And – it could still go either way.”</p><p>“<em>Whose</em> choice?” Nancy asks.</p><p>Barb just crosses her arms, and frowns at the glass.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>Which only leaves one.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>On the other side of the two-way mirror, a silent battle of wills is taking place. A staring competition between a balding man in a three-piece suit, and the Hawkins chief of police.</p><p>Unsurprisingly, it’s the suit who breaks first. “I’m sorry. I understand your position. But I can’t just let this go unreported, let this -” He gestures towards what is, on this side, a vast window looking out over the room where the others are waiting. “<em>Situation</em> go unmonitored. And I <em>can’t</em> let 011 just walk away. What happens if – if Russia gets wind of this? Any <em>one</em> of those kids alone, with the right handling, could bring our country, <em>any</em> country, to its knees -”</p><p>“Yeah. Good thing they’re not gonna get that handling, huh?” Hopper crosses his arms and stares the suit down. “Because they’re going home. To grow up like regular kids.”</p><p>“Which I can make happen. With only minimal, unobtrusive monitoring.” The suit casts a long glance at the mirror that, from this side, is a window. On the other side, Barbara Holland is staring back. The suit frowns a little before turning to face Hopper again. “They’d never have to know we were there. So long as they pose no threat to the security of our nation, they can live their sheltered little lives, grow up, marry their high school sweethearts, and live happily ever after on a cul-de-sac with a dog and 2.5 children and a white picket fence like <em>normal</em> people. Everybody gets what they want.”</p><p>“Great. So -”</p><p>“But <em>only,</em>” the suit finishes, “if 011 stays here.”</p><p>They both turn towards the window, to look at the girl with a number instead of a name. The boys around her have gotten into some kind of boisterous argument, but she doesn’t seem to be taking part. She’s sitting, perfectly still, her hands clasped white-knuckled in her lap, staring into the two-way mirror from below furrowed brows, mutiny barely hiding the fear in her dark eyes.</p><p>She looks so small against the room’s sterile white.</p><p>“Before you say no,” the suit says, low and almost friendly, taking a step towards the window, “think about it. And consider whether <em>she’s</em> the one you really want to be taking out of here.”</p><p>He meets the incredulous look the chief turns on him with a small, knowing smile and a raised eyebrow. “And who <em>else</em> I might have the authority to barter for.”</p><p>In the charged silence that fills the little room, the explosive breath the chief lets out is nearly deafening. He presses a hand against the small of his back, like it pains him, and for just a moment, shuts his eyes.</p><p>When he opens them again, his eyes find, not the girl, but Joyce Byers’ face.</p><p>“Look,” Hopper says, at last, turning and leaning into the suit’s space in a way that makes the suit’s spine go a little straighter and the two guards on the door each put a hand on their guns, “your boss is a vegetable. His right-hand man – woman – is dead. Which means you’re gonna be the one writing the report about all this. Right?”</p><p>The suit gives him a long look before nodding, once, like he doesn’t trust that he isn’t walking straight into a trap. Smarter than he looks, then.</p><p>“Then here’s what’s going to happen. Your report says the kid killed that <em>thing</em>, and it took her out with it. No body to recover. We all walk out of here, and leave you alone with your alien corpse and that weird portal in your basement to poke and prod at to your heart’s content. And we all forget this ever happened. Nobody else gets hurt. You’re the hero who survived a monster rampage and scored your big bosses an extraterrestrial test subject. Everybody gets what they want.”</p><p>The suit opens his mouth like he’s going to argue, and Hopper pushes on, relentless. “<em>Or,</em> we can do this the hard way.” He nods towards the window. “See that kid out there? With the stupid hair?”</p><p>“They’ve <em>all</em> got stupid hair.”</p><p>Hopper gives another, sidelong nod, conceding the point. “You know which one I mean. I say the word, and he’ll have you telling your boss’s bosses that <em>you</em> were the one who had the girl bumped off ahead of schedule. And cremated. Think you’ll have much authority after that?”</p><p>“If <em>I</em> say the word, I could make every last one of you disappear forever.”</p><p>“Yeah. You could try.” Hopper glances back towards the window. “Everybody in there’s gonna have something to say about it, of course, and that kind of argument always has a body count. But that’s what you do best, right? Keep kids with powers locked up against their will? And what’s another…nine disappearances and suspicious deaths? In Hawkins? In a <em>week?</em>”</p><p>The suit stares out through the two-way mirror. His face stays impressively still, impassive, but there’s obviously a whole lot of frantic calculation going on under that shiny dome.</p><p>“You really aren’t interested in what else I might be able to offer you,” he says, at last.</p><p>Hopper’s stare is flat, impassive. “Don’t play much poker, do you. You’ve got <em>nothing</em> else to offer me.”</p><p>One of the guards shifts his grip on his gun. The suit holds out a hand, without breaking eye contact with that stare, and the guard stops moving.</p><p>“I want to examine the Byers boy,” the suit concedes, at last. “And the Holland girl.”</p><p>“Sure. At the hospital. Which is where we’re all going next.”</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>The Wheelers show up at the hospital first, with a half-asleep Holly in tow. The middle of the night isn’t the best time to get a babysitter. And based on the way Karen Wheeler is yelling at the guard in the hall outside the hospital rooms where they’re all being looked over, she wouldn’t have let Holly out of her sight tonight anyway.</p><p>“- don’t <em>care</em> about ‘protocol’, my <em>children</em> are in there and I am <em>going</em> to see them, so you can just take your hand off that radio and let me through before I call the police and a lawyer and every news outlet in a hundred-mile radius -”</p><p>“Karen. Calm down, he’s just doing his job -”</p><p>“Oh, <em>shut</em> <em>up</em>, Ted!”</p><p>“Mom?” Mike says, turning to the door as Karen Wheeler comes storming through. Her stride falters at the sight of him, furious terror cracking into overwhelmed relief.</p><p>“Michael!” Mike’s mom crosses the room in three big steps and grabs him up in a smothering hug, ignoring his protests that everybody’s watching, <em>Mom</em> – “You’re all right? Where’s Nancy?”</p><p>“Here,” Nancy says, from the other side of the half-curtain separating Will’s bed from the one where a nurse is listening to Barbara’s lungs with a stethoscope pressed to her back. She glares back into her mother’s hopeful smile. “You knew, didn’t you? And you <em>never</em> told us.”</p><p>“Nancy – we’ll talk about this at home, okay?”</p><p>Nancy looks like she might put up a fight, but then she looks up at the guard who’s followed Karen and Ted into the room, and subsides. “…okay.”</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>Claudia Henderson shows up shortly afterwards, and the Sinclairs and the Hollands follow close on her heels, rescuing Dustin from being suffocated with love. Erica complains loudly about being woken up and dragged along, and complains even more when she sees Lucas isn’t even <em>hurt</em>.</p><p>The cover story they’d all agreed on gets repeated over and over, until it’s drilled firmly into everybody’s heads. It’s flimsy – something about a party out at the quarry, and Mike trying to get Nancy in trouble with their parents, and somebody nearly falling into the water – but so long as they all stick firmly to it, it should work.</p><p>They trickle out, in their little family groups. Mike puts up a good fight about bringing El home with them, but Karen Wheeler just looks between the girl and the guard at the door and gives Mike a firm “You can see your friend tomorrow, young man, if your father doesn’t ground you and your sister both for life for pulling this stupid stunt.” The Wheelers don’t hang around long after that, even though everyone can hear Mike’s protests all the way down the hall.</p><p>Steve’s the last to go, with five stitches in his cheek and a man with a dark suit, a tan that’s almost as dark as the suit, and weirdly horsey teeth, who’s even pissier about getting dragged out of bed than Erica Sinclair. Gordon Harrington threatens to sue the hospital staff, the Sattler family, and the Hawkins police department, before Steve finally manages to convince him just to take him home.</p><p>And then only the Byers, the chief, and El are left.</p><p>“They want to keep Will until morning. For observation,” Joyce says, and no one has to be able to read minds to hear the unspoken <em>so I’ll be here the rest of the night with him</em>. The hospital probably has rules against that. Hopper feels a brief flicker of pity for the person who has to try to tell that to Joyce.</p><p>“I can run home,” Jonathan says to her, glancing up at Hopper before he adds, clearly for his benefit, “For toothbrushes and a change of clothes. But I’m staying with Will, too.”</p><p>All three of them turn to look back at the bed. And the two kids sitting on it. Will says something, too low to catch, and El laughs, bright and surprised.</p><p>“They’re not going to let her stay, too,” Joyce says, biting at her bottom lip. She casts a wary glance at the stone-faced guard at the door before adding, low, “And I’m not sure this is the safest place for her. I – I know we’ve already asked so much of you, but – just for now, just for tonight, would you…<em>could</em> you…?”</p><p>Which is how Jim Hopper ends up with a psychic child in the passenger seat of his truck, heading for the trailer he currently calls home. It’s been way too long since he had to take care of anybody else, let alone a kid. He hasn’t got anywhere for her to sleep. He’s going to have to do a <em>lot</em> of cleaning up. The jug of milk in the fridge probably went off a week ago, and he can’t remember if there’s anything else in there besides beer –</p><p>“Hey. Kid.” The girl’s head snaps up, like a startled deer, her eyes huge and frightened. She relaxes a little when he says, “What – what d’you like to eat?”</p><p>Her voice is quiet, but steady and clear and hopeful. “Eggos?”</p><p>“Yeah. Yeah, sure, we can get you some Eggos. Maybe not until the morning, though.”</p><p>The kid’s got a surprising smile. She’s looked so serious and solemn for most of the time Hopper’s known her. The smile makes her look way more like a kid.</p><p>It’s nice.</p><p>“Okay. We’ll get you something to eat, find you somewhere to sleep. Everything else, we’ll figure out in the morning.”</p><p>The kid smiles again, and then turns to look out the window, at the deep, velvety dark, the trees flying past.</p><p>It’s way too late, tonight, to think too far beyond food and sleep. But still, Jim Hopper looks at the girl called Eleven and wonders, just briefly, before filing the thought away for later, whether Becky and Terry Ives still live at the same address.</p><p>If they don’t, whether the girl beside him could find them, like she’d tried to do with Will Byers.</p><p>And if she could find anyone <em>else</em>.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>They talk about it, now.</p><p>At the Wheelers’, before anyone gets to go back to bed. Ted does his level best to convince everyone that whatever it is they’re arguing about can wait for daylight, until Nancy blows up the TV, at which point he gives up and just goes to bed anyway.</p><p>They talk about it, up in Mike’s room, after the fireworks are over. Nancy pushes the door open without bothering to knock. “You can’t sleep either, right?”</p><p>“Well, I can’t <em>now</em>,” Mike grumbles. But he turns on his bedside lamp.</p><p>Nancy sits on the end of his bed, a ball of tension and nervous energy. She glares at his <em>Dark Crystal</em> poster, biting her lip and bouncing her knee, for a long moment before rounding on him. “Mom shouldn’t have kept it from us.”</p><p>Mike shrugs. “Yeah. But she did. What d’you want <em>me</em> to do about it?”</p><p>That takes some of the wind out of Nancy’s outrage. “Aren’t you even a little mad?”</p><p>“Maybe?” The more Mike thinks about it, though, the less mad he is. “But - you saw the lab. Where they were keeping El. And you heard what Jonathan said about what they were doing to her. If anybody found out -” He realises as he says it how true it is, how easily it could’ve happened, and all of a sudden he’s cold right to the centre. “That could’ve been us.”</p><p>Nancy’s quiet for a moment, too, picking at Mike’s bedspread.</p><p>“That doesn’t make what Mom did okay,” she says, but she’s a little less sure than she had been.</p><p>“Didn’t say it did. But you saw how scared she -” He has to stop before his mouth can finish that sentence. “Wait, <em>could</em> you see how scared she was after Will went missing?”</p><p>Nancy just looks at him.</p><p>Mike crosses his arms over his chest, settling back against his pillow and not meeting Nancy’s eyes. “Okay. I guess I just have no idea what’s actually obvious and what’s just me.”</p><p>Nancy snorts, again. “Mom always said you were just ‘sensitive’.” She’s starting to cool off, but there’s still a flicker of resentful anger when she adds, “We’re <em>not</em> going to let Holly grow up like this. Right? No more secrets.”</p><p>“No more secrets,” Mike agrees, watching his big sister. “You know, I actually thought you’d be freaking out <em>more</em>.”</p><p>Nancy’s eyebrows go up, but she isn’t really all that surprised. “I…don’t think it’s really hit me yet. Now that I don’t have something to <em>do</em>...” She looks down at her knees, her voice going quiet. “I don’t want to go to bed. I don’t…really want to be alone.”</p><p>Mike knows what she means. He keeps thinking he sees the walls of his bedroom starting to bulge outwards. Keeps thinking he hears distant helicopters. He really wishes they hadn’t made him leave El behind. He really wishes she were here. So he could know she’s safe. So maybe they could both feel like it’s over.</p><p>“So…” he says, casting around for something to talk about that doesn’t lead back to white-tiled underground rooms and monsters with no faces. “Do you like Jonathan Byers now?”</p><p>The flash of annoyance that overtakes Nancy as she wrinkles up her nose at him tells Mike his plan has succeeded. “What? No! No, I -” She looks Mike in the eye, and lets out a resigned, “<em>Ugh</em>. No, he’s – he isn’t what I was expecting. There’s a lot more to him. He’s…nice. And funny. I don’t know.”</p><p>“But you still like <em>Steve</em>.”</p><p>Nancy bites down on her lower lip and doesn’t answer for a long moment, staring at her knees. “He…turned out to be more than I expected, too.” She shakes her head. “But – I only like him because he <em>made</em> me -”</p><p>“What?” It’s Mike’s turn to wrinkle up his nose. “No way. We <em>saw</em> him make people do stuff. Trust me. No way would you still be so gross and annoying if you didn’t actually like him.”</p><p>There’s a little warm glow of hope flickering in the look Nancy shoots Mike. “…really?”</p><p>“Uh, <em>yeah</em>.”</p><p>Nancy lets out a long, low groan and flops back to lie across Mike’s bed, arms outflung at her sides, looking up at the ceiling. “This is such a mess.”</p><p>Mike shrugs. “You’ll figure it out. You’re smart.” He catches the smile Nancy turns in his direction, and warns her, “But leave me out of it. And do <em>not</em> tell anybody I said you’re smart.”</p><p>“Aww,” Nancy says, stickily sweet and smug, “it’s too late. I know what you really think about me.”</p><p>“I’ll put gum in your stupid hair while you’re sleeping.”</p><p>“You’ll have to get your telekinetic girlfriend to unlock my door first.”</p><p>“<em>Ew!</em> El’s not my <em>girlfriend!</em>”</p><p>Nancy rolls her eyes. “You are <em>so</em> twelve years old.” She pauses for a moment, before asking, “So…just how long was she secretly living in our basement?”</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>They talk about it, now.</p><p>They talk about it at the Hollands’, in the morning light, over coffee and croissants. The contract Barbara signed bans her from talking about what happened in the lab, but it can’t keep her from telling her mom and dad about <em>herself</em>. After Nancy’s tirade against her mother, she’s expecting the worst, but her parents both seem more surprised than anything. And a little disbelieving. Barb’s pretty sure they’ll change their tunes, though, once the predictions she makes over breakfast start coming true.</p><p>The Sinclairs are a little more easily convinced. Lucas’ dad admits they’ve thought for a while that there was <em>something.</em> Psychic powers aren’t exactly what they’d expected – aren’t exactly what anybody would expect – but they’re ready to support him regardless.</p><p>(Erica wants to know if she’s got superpowers too, and if not, why <em>not</em>. It’s so not fair if <em>Lucas</em> gets them and she doesn’t. And while they’re on the subject? She <em>knows</em> he took her bike, and superpowers will not save him if he doesn’t get it back. Without a <em>scratch</em>.)</p><p>They don’t talk about it at the Harringtons’, though Lynn Harrington does give her son’s shoulder a squeeze on her way out of the house, and leans in to say, quietly, in his ear, “Your father’s never been any good at keeping secrets.”</p><p>And they talk about it at the Byers’.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>They talk about it at Joyce and Karen’s coffee dates, which start after the first time Karen turns up on the doorstep with a trayful of apology brownies and the opening line, “I’m pretty sure Nancy’s never going to forgive me.” Joyce invites her in for coffee and sips at it to hide her face while Karen spills out her story, her realisation that Nancy wasn’t ordinary, the fear that had only grown after she heard about what happened to Jim Hopper and his family, the decision she’d made – after all, they were only kids, and <em>Joyce</em> must know what it’s like trying to get kids to keep secrets, and if Nancy or Mike had told their friends, and their friends had talked –</p><p>“You should really be telling Nancy this, not me,” Joyce interrupts, finally, and Karen shakes her head.</p><p>“She won’t talk to me. She leaves the room if I come in.” She stares down into her mug, wrapping both hands around it. “I was just trying to protect her. I think I’ve ruined everything.”</p><p>Their shared history might have had some bumps along the way, but Joyce and Karen go way back. It’s hard not to feel even a little sympathy for Karen. Joyce reaches out, and wraps a hand around Karen’s on the mug. “Give her time.”</p><p>Joyce thinks that’s going to be the end of it, that they’ll go back to their separate lives. She’s surprised when Karen turns up the next week with a loaf of banana bread, and just as surprised that she invites Karen in again. But it’s amazing, how much just having someone to talk to, someone who <em>knows</em>, can lift a weight off. Joyce jokes that they should start a support group.</p><p>Karen looks a little too thoughtful at that.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>They talk about it at Saturday sleepovers, when the Party spend the afternoon playing games and ‘training’ – which is pretty much the usual messing around, but now with <em>superpowers</em> - and the evening catching El up on the classics of modern cinema, while eating everything in sight. Technically, El’s still supposed to be keeping a low profile, since they don’t <em>know</em> how safe it is, but – they’re far from any neighbours, out here. And by now, half the town’s already heard about Eleanor Frazier, new in town and one of Mike Wheeler’s friends. No reason not to take advantage of that.</p><p>Whether it’d be a bigger risk to take El <em>out</em> of town, to meet the mother and aunt she’s never known, is still the subject of heated debate between the adults. If anyone’s still looking for her – which is much too real a possibility – they’d be fools not to keep an eye on the Ives. And Becky’s already taking care of Terry, it wouldn’t be fair to unexpectedly drop a psychic preteen on her as well. But, like Joyce maintains, they’re <em>family</em>. Terry never stopped looking. She at least deserves to know. <em>El</em> at least deserves to know.</p><p>Until they come to some kind of consensus, though – and until Hopper stops tearing off all over the country on whatever mysterious errand he’s making excuses for <em>this </em>week - El will continue to split her time between the Byers’ and the cabin in the woods.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>They talk about it at weeknight study sessions, where Barb – and Jonathan, and Nancy – <em>actually</em> try, with mixed results, to tutor Steve in chemistry. Barb’s perfected her sidelong look and disappointed eyebrow raise for when Steve and Nancy get particularly couple-y, now that she’s got Jonathan around to appreciate it.</p><p>They’re less disgustingly cute than they’d been the first time around, though. Barb’s surprised to realise that <em>Steve Harrington</em> actually seems almost…shy around Nancy, now, and unexpectedly careful with his words. When Nancy confesses to her that he’d only agreed to try it again if she took the lead, Barb’s not exactly surprised. But she <em>is</em>, begrudgingly, impressed. Apparently the leopard can change his gym shorts.</p><p>She makes sure to only rib Jonathan about his huge, obvious crush on her best friend when the other two are out of earshot. It doesn’t seem fair otherwise. He’s a good sport about it, though. And if it upsets him to see Steve and Nancy swapping spit, he doesn’t show it. There’s…something there that Barb’s not quite seeing, something that doesn’t quite make sense to her yet. But she’s sure it will, eventually. Most things usually do.</p><p>Nancy’s made it her personal mission to seek out every other person at Hawkins High who might have some kind of power. So far, she’s identified two likely candidates – Heather from the cheer team and Robin who’s in band with Barb. None of the others are quite sure what she’s planning to do with this information, but knowing Nancy, it’ll be something spectacular.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>And sometimes, they talk about it over big, shared meals. Evenings where they cram the Byers’ tiny kitchen and overflow into the living room. Will shows El how to feed scraps to Chester under the table to get him to lay his big soft head in her lap, even though they’ve both been told, more than once, not to. Lucas drily fact-checks the wilder embellishments Steve puts on tales of his basketball victories, and Jonathan complains without any real annoyance that he’s going to have a migraine for a week from all their constant, excited noise. Nancy’s already had to replace three shattered dishes out of her allowance, but she and her mother are at least talking again. Dustin’s still holding out hope that he might find out he has some kind of power, too, no matter how many times Barb tells him not to get his hopes up. But he’s also been working on persuading El to help them recreate the flying bicycle scene from <em>E.T.</em>, and despite Mike’s protests, having much better luck.</p><p>The chief’s got a standing invitation, but he’s around to take them up on it rarely enough that, when he does, Joyce still treats it like a special occasion. She’s long since given up on trying to get any of the others to behave, though.</p><p>She’s got her suspicions about what he’s doing, who he’s chasing around looking for. But she can’t force him to talk about it. He’ll tell her when he’s ready.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>Outside the safety of four walls and the people who were <em>there</em>, of course, they still don’t talk about it. Can’t, legally, talk about it. Out there, it’s like nothing ever happened. Everything goes right back to normal. Except when they run into each other at school or downtown and exchange knowing smiles.</p><p>But together, at least…things aren’t normal. And they don’t have to pretend they are.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>A lot can change in a month.</p><p>But some things never change. Which is why, when Dr. Sam Owens arrives to take charge of the Hawkins National Lab, he gets an unexpected visit from the chief of police.</p><p>“To what do I owe the…pleasure?” Sam asks. He’s read the file on Chief James Hopper, of course. And been thoroughly briefed on the November incident. He actually has too many ideas of what this might be about.</p><p>He is not expecting what actually comes out of the chief’s mouth. “Heard you were missing a couple of files.”</p><p>Two, exactly, actually. Records of test subjects. And because of <em>which </em>subjects, Sam’s had his suspicions. Suspicions which have been unconfirmed until now. “That’s interesting. I don’t think anybody here reported anything stolen.”</p><p>All he gets out of the chief is a poker-faced shrug. “Town like Hawkins, you would not believe the rumour mill.”</p><p>There’s obviously no point in pushing it. “And I’m guessing you’ve got some…information on the whereabouts of said files, then.”</p><p>“You’re quicker on the uptake than the last guy,” the chief says. It doesn’t sound like a compliment. “Yeah. They’re safe. Guy who’s looking after them is real…security-conscious.” The chief is a big man. Sometimes, Sam knows, big men can be unaware of how intimidating others find their physical presence. He’s pretty sure this is not one of those times. “Anything <em>happens</em> to me or Joyce Byers or any of those kids, though, and everything in them gets the front page of every major newspaper in the country. You think MKUltra was a PR disaster, you have <em>no</em> idea the kind of hell I’ll rain down on you.”</p><p>Sam looks the chief in the eye, and calls a spade a spade. “So this is blackmail.”</p><p>“I prefer…<em>insurance</em>.”</p><p>“And what are you trying to <em>ensure</em>?”</p><p>For the first time, the chief falters, a little, before finding his footing. “What do you know about what actually happened here in November?”</p><p>“The official story,” Sam says. “And the…unofficial story.”</p><p>The chief nods, slowly.</p><p>“I need papers,” he says. “Documents. Birth certificate, records of school enrollment, medical records, whatever kids’ve got. Something official to prove the existence of a twelve-year-old. Name of Jane. Or Eleanor.”</p><p>Sam doesn’t need to be a telepath to follow the chief’s drift. “That could be arranged.”</p><p>“And – nobody goes after any of those kids. They get left alone. You <em>stop</em> watching them – yeah, I know you’ve been watching them - nobody studies them, nobody tries to recruit them. <em>Nobody</em> tries to <em>take</em> them.” The chief rests a hand on the gun holstered at his hip, shifting his weight a little more into Sam’s personal space, but his mild, if stern, expression doesn’t change.</p><p>Dr. Sam Owens is not a poker player. But he is very good at his job. They wouldn’t have sent him here if he wasn’t.</p><p>He’s learned to recognise a bluff when he sees one. And this is not a bluff.</p><p>“I’ll see what I can do,” he says.</p><p>The chief’s stare doesn’t get any less penetrating.</p><p>“Look,” Sam says. “I don’t know what you want me to say. I’m one cog in a very big machine.” He studies the chief’s face, and takes a risk. “And – I’ve got different priorities than <em>the</em> <em>last guy</em>. <em>I</em> think we might even be able to help some of those kids, with what we know now. Give them some more information, help them find out more about their…abilities.” He meets the chief’s eyes again, and does some quick mental shuffling before adding, “But only if they come to us first. Obviously.”</p><p>“Right. Because nobody here is gonna contact them. Because they’re going to be left <em>alone</em>.”</p><p>Sam sighs. “I will <em>see</em> what I can <em>do.</em>”</p><p>The chief doesn’t look happy. But he’s going to have to deal with it. This is the most Sam can promise. For now.</p><p>At last, the chief gives a nod. “All right. But I’ll be keeping an eye on things.”</p><p>“Fine,” Sam says, feeling like this sort of concludes the negotiations. He’s already turning to go as he asks, “Was there anything else you wanted?”</p><p>“Actually…”</p><p>Sam looks back.</p><p>For the first time since the man walked in, the chief actually looks nervous. “There was…<em>one</em> other thing.”</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>And this is Pittsburgh.</p><p>An apartment building, much like any other on the street. This one is different only because of the battered camper van pulling in to park out front.</p><p>Kali Prasad twists back in her seat, to lock eyes with the others in the back. Her friends. Her crew. Her family.</p><p>They’re all getting tired of this chase, crisscrossing back and forth across the country, she knows. But they’ve finally cornered their quarry. There’s just one last little chore to take care of, and then they can all go back to Chicago and the warehouse and <em>rest</em> until she finds another lead. She’s looking forward to no more night driving for a while. “We ready?”</p><p>The chorus of whoops and cheers from her masked friends makes her smile.</p><p>Kali turns to the girl in the seat beside her, the only one who’s still quiet. “Princess? Still with us?”</p><p>The girl Kali’d called ‘Princess’ turns huge, startled blue eyes on Kali, before they crinkle up in a smile. She sweeps fine blonde hair back behind one ear before extending her hand. “Always.”</p><p>Kali clasps the other girl’s offered hand in her own, tattooed wrist brushing against tattooed wrist before they break apart. “Then what are we waiting for?”</p><p>Two more masks slot into place.</p><p>And then the van doors fly open, and out they all spill, into the snow-studded dark.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>Snow also spackles the night around the Byers’ house, bright flecks dancing against the dark. The December wind batters them against the small window looking in on the bathroom, and the small figure of Will Byers inside, standing in front of the sink. His frightened eyes are locked with those of his reflection.</p><p>The light over the mirror buzzes, growing steadily brighter and brighter, until it’s too bright to look at directly. The shadows it throws down over Will’s face carve out all its angles, until he resembles a skull, melting slowly down. He doesn’t seem to notice. Doesn’t move. Doesn’t look away from the mirror.</p><p>The light flares pure white, and the bulb pops, spraying glass into the sink and throwing the room into darkness.</p><p>Will starts, taking a big step back from the mirror. He blinks, and shakes his head, like he’s just waking up from an unintended nap. He reaches over to the wall and toggles the lightswitch once or twice, letting out a disappointed sigh when the light doesn’t come back on.</p><p>He opens the door, and pauses, glancing back over his shoulder curiously at the light, just once.</p><p>Then he turns and goes back out into the light and warmth and cheerful noise of the house, shutting the door behind him. Leaving only empty, silent darkness in his wake.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>Quiet settles back over peaceful, sleepy Hawkins, Indiana, where nothing ever happens.</p><p>And where, deep under the ground, a hole in the world still pulses, like a beating heart.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>*ominous synths*</p><p>And that's all she wrote! Thank you all for reading, for your lovely comments and kudos, and to everyone who lurked. I hope you all had as much fun reading this as I did writing it!</p><p>I have some ideas about a version of s2 set in this AU, but no concrete plans yet for a sequel. I do have a couple of other ST fics currently in the works, though! The first, and probably closest to finished, is a fic of what season four (okay, season 3.5) might look like if I'd had complete creative control, which I'm tentatively calling 'Homecoming'. It's got more main kids discovering they have powers and government conspiracies, as well as some teamups the show hasn't given us (yet?), sibling bonding, genre savvy Dustin Henderson, dealing with where s3 left everyone (without a major timeskip), concerningly long chapters, more references to 80s music and movies than you can shake a stick at, the Power of Friendship, and approximately 1500% more Robin Buckley.</p><p>The other, tentatively titled 'that same small town in each of us', is another canon rewrite, swapping the roles of the teens, the kids, and the adults. Hawkins Chief of Police Nancy Wheeler and single father Jonathan Byers search for a missing girl and uncover a government conspiracy, while twelve-year-old Karen Harrington and Jim Hopper hunt a monster, and seventeen-year-old Mike Harrington and Will Byers try to help a psychic fugitive rescue her long-lost little sister from the Hawkins National Lab.</p><p>If either of these sounds interesting to you, please watch this space, or check out my <a href="https://marypsue.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-mary's-fic-tag/">tumblr</a> for samples and updates! I'm always happy to chat, as well.</p><p>Thanks again for reading!</p><p> </p><p>ETA Apr 19 2021: Okay, so seasons 2 and 3 in this AU are definitely happening. Watch this space.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Comments are always welcome and appreciated! I would love to know what you think. You can also find me over on <a href="https://marypsue.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>